Amelia was hired by Mr. Pennington, a man with the particular look of someone paying dearly for hope he no longer believed in.

His wife had taken to seances. Not one, but many. Always with the same medium.

Madam Elowen Vire.

A name chosen, Amelia suspects, with great care and very little honesty.

Mrs. Pennington was convinced she could still speak to their son. The medium encouraged this belief, and, more importantly, required regular payment to maintain the connection.

Mr. Pennington wanted confirmation. Not comfort. Not theatrics. Just the truth.

The seance took place in his own home, which he insisted proved its legitimacy. He could not see how any deception might be arranged under his own roof.

Amelia was introduced as a distant cousin of Mr. Pennington.

The sitting was held in the library. Curtains drawn, lamps dimmed to near uselessness. A round table, hands joined, all very proper. Madam Vire took control of the room with the ease of long practice.

She did not work alone.

A quiet assistant lingered near the back of the room, introduced as a helper to manage the space. Unremarkable. Which, Amelia noted, is often the point.

Amelia felt nothing.

No presence. No echo. No disturbance. Only anticipation, which is not the same thing, no matter how badly people want it to be.

Corax remained unseen, perched high atop a bookshelf where the darkness gathered thickest. From there, he provided a running commentary.

«Second set of hands,» he noted. «Watches the room, not the table.»

The performance began simply.

The candle flame nearest Madam Vire flickered, bent, then guttered out entirely though her hands never left the table.

Mrs. Pennington gasped.

«Sleeve,» Corax murmured. «There’s a line. Fine. Runs to her wrist.»

Amelia watched more closely.

The medium shifted slightly in her chair. Too slight for most to notice. The sort of movement one makes when adjusting posture.

A moment later, the flame relit from the neighbouring candle, drawn across as if by unseen breath.

Corax was more direct.

«Air. Controlled. She’s feeding it.»

Later inspection confirmed it. A narrow tube concealed along the seam of her gown, running down her arm and into her palm. The other end disappeared into her shoe, where a small pressure pump sat hidden beneath the sole. A subtle shift of her foot, and she could direct a steady stream of air without moving her hands at all.

Enough to disturb a flame. Enough to extinguish one.

Enough to convince the desperate.

The assistant did the rest.

Soft taps against the shelves when attention drifted. A chair nudged just enough to creak. At one point, a faint child’s voice from the far side of the room, positioned so no one could turn fast enough to place it.

«Ventriloquism,» Corax said. «Not hers.»

The assistant never looked toward the sound.

Amelia ended it without ceremony.

She broke the circle, stood, and struck the lamps to full brightness. The effect collapsed immediately.

The assistant froze.

Madam Vire attempted offence. It did not survive the light.

Amelia took her wrist, turned the sleeve, and exposed the concealed tubing with a small, efficient motion.

“Clever,” she said. “But not supernatural.”

Mr. Pennington dismissed them both.

Mrs. Pennington wept. Quietly. Not for the deception, Amelia said, but for its loss.

«Humans will pay dearly for hope,» Corax observed.

Amelia did not disagree.

When she told me the story, she was unusually restrained.

No lecture. No irritation. Just a single conclusion.

“Grief,” she said, “is the most reliable tool a fraud will ever have.”