Chapter 126

Loid brings the scandal article to Franky, whose examination also fails to disprove it. What catches Loid's eye is a tiny Ag mark in the photograph that does not exist at the actual location, likely a forger's hidden signature. Franky connects the mark to a newcomer in the trade called Silver Halide, and Loid sets off on the trail. Elsewhere, Martha drives Henry toward the Ministry and pointedly mentions how hard Becky took his sudden resignation, remarking that ignoring other people's feelings is typical of him.

In the schoolhouse, Anya reads the mind behind the floating apparition and announces the ghost is a trick. The puppeteer is Matron Persil of Cline Hall, whose decades of laundry work gave her the rope skills to fly an Imperial Scholar's robe rigged with reflectors for eyes. She snares Becky and moves on Anya, but Damian grabs Anya's net and tangles the matron's rope with a technique he dubs the Rolling Sweep. Pressing on to the art room, the children find the operation's ringleader, Murdoch Swan, mid-negotiation with a parent buying their son's way into Eden. They overhear the full scheme: install a confederate in Henry's admissions committee seat and cash in on sold placements once the new school year starts. Swan even explains how the theft worked, using a safe key inherited from his father, the school's previous headmaster, plus a bribed guard.

Confronted, Swan waves the doctored photo and insists the scandal is genuine, privately gloating that he commissioned the forgery, and noting that the envelope sitting near the children holds the paperwork from the admissions deal he just closed. Anya, thinking fast, whisks the envelope away with her net, handing her friends hard evidence. Swan tries buying it back with a promise of unlimited Stella Stars; Damian and Becky refuse instantly, though Anya wavers long enough to horrify them. The trio flees, only for Swan's reinforcements to hem them in. Then a Tonitrus Bolt sends the bribing parent flying, and Donna Schlag strides in with Rahden, telling the children to stand clear while she deals out Bolts to Swan and every one of his accomplices.

Loid identifies an Ag signature in the fabricated photo and, through Franky, links it to a new forger operating as Silver Halide.

The schoolhouse ghost is revealed as Matron Persil's puppetry, defeated by Damian's Rolling Sweep with Anya's net.

Murdoch Swan is exposed as the scheme's leader, having stolen the midterms with his father's old key and planned to sell Eden admissions through a puppet on the committee.

Anya seizes the envelope containing the admissions deal documents, and Donna Schlag arrives to punish the conspirators.

Matron Persil debuts in this chapter, and the forger alias Silver Halide is a chemistry joke: silver halides are the light-sensitive compounds at the heart of photographic film, and Ag is the chemical symbol for silver.

Swan's ability to open the safe traces back to his father having been Eden's prior headmaster, tying his nepotism directly to the crime.