Puzzle 18: The Fire Circle of Logic - Ashes of Betrayal

Puzzle Walkthrough

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The contestant who received no votes cast their own vote before Jane. So whoever ends up with zero votes must be positioned earlier in the sequence than Jane.

Neither the first vote nor the second vote targeted David. So positions one and two cannot point at David.

Jessica voted after David, and David voted after Axel. This fixes the relative order Axel before David before Jessica.

The first and third votes targeted each other. So whoever is first voted for the person who is third, and the person who is third voted for the one who is first.

Exactly one vote was cast between Axel’s and David’s votes. Given Axel comes before David, their positions must be (2nd, 4th). Then Jessica, who must be after David, is 5th. That leaves the 1st and 3rd positions for the remaining two voters.

Jessica voted for a contestant who had received no votes before hers. Since she is 5th, her target must have zero votes after the first four parchments.

Jane didn’t vote for Jessica. Keep that in mind when we assign the mutual pair.

The second vote targeted a contestant who would be targeted by exactly one other vote. So the person targeted by the 2nd vote will end at exactly two votes total.

Exactly one of Axel and Suri voted for Jessica, and exactly one of David and Jane voted for Jessica. Because Jane did not vote for Jessica, David must be the one (from that pair) who voted for Jessica. Therefore Jessica’s total must include David plus exactly one of Axel or Suri.

Now place the voters by order. With Axel 2nd, David 4th, and Jessica 5th, the 1st and 3rd spots belong to Suri and Jane in some order. The first and third votes target each other, so Suri and Jane must be each other’s targets. Jane cannot vote for Jessica, so the mutual pair must be Suri voting for Jane and Jane voting for Suri. Thus, 1st is Suri → Jane and 3rd is Jane → Suri.

Return to who voted for Jessica. Exactly one of Axel and Suri voted for Jessica. Suri’s vote is already fixed on Jane, so Axel must be the one who voted for Jessica. That makes the second vote (Axel’s) target Jessica. By the “exactly one other vote” rule for the second vote’s target, exactly one more vote must also target Jessica; we already know David is that other vote, so David (4th) → Jessica.

Tally after four votes: Jane has 1 (from Suri), Suri has 1 (from Jane), Jessica has 2 (from Axel and David), David has 0, Axel has 0. For Jessica’s requirement (she voted for someone with no prior votes), her only valid targets at this moment are David or Axel. If she chose Axel, Axel would end with 1 and David would remain at 0; the zero-vote contestant would be David, who voted 4th, which is not “before Jane” (3rd) and would violate the rule about the zero-vote contestant casting before Jane. Therefore Jessica must vote for David. This gives David exactly one vote, keeps Axel at zero, and satisfies the “zero-vote contestant voted before Jane” rule (Axel, with zero votes, cast 2nd, which is before Jane at 3rd).

All clues are satisfied: the 1st and 3rd target each other, neither 1st nor 2nd targeted David, Axel is 2nd and David 4th with exactly one between them, Jessica is after David, the second vote’s target (Jessica) ends with exactly two votes, the “exactly one of each pair voted for Jessica” condition yields Axel and David on Jessica, and the zero-vote contestant (Axel) voted before Jane.

Answers

Suri’s parchment was read 1st and she voted for Jane.
Axel’s parchment was read 2nd and he voted for Jessica.
Jane’s parchment was read 3rd and she voted for Suri.
David’s parchment was read 4th and he voted for Jessica.
Jessica’s parchment was read 5th and she voted for David.

Jessica is eliminated.

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