Chapter 131: Recollection

My plan was simple. From now on, Lily would never be alone!

Wherever she went, I would be there to stop her from telling her life story to anyone suspicious.

I was also going to be subtle about it. Lily would never even notice.

On Monday morning, I walked her to class.

"You don’t have to do this, you know," Lily said, smiling at me as we crossed the courtyard. "Your class is on the other side of the academy."

"I wanted to spend more time with my unofficial wife!"

Lily went pink. She bumped her shoulder against mine.

"That’s so sweet..."

On Monday afternoon, I walked her to her next class. I was late to my own, again.

On Monday evening, I walked her to the dining hall. Then I walked her back.

On Tuesday, I waited outside the bathhouse for forty minutes. Every time a girl came out, I leaned to the side to check whether Lily was behind her. When Lily finally stepped out with a towel around her neck, she found me sitting on the steps with my arms folded.

"Kohaku...? Have you been out here this whole time?"

"Nope! I just got here!"

"Your tail’s all damp from the steam."

"It’s a coincidence!"

Lily tilted her head at me. She didn’t say anything. She just watched me, for a little longer than usual.

On Wednesday, it got worse.

We were walking past the chapel on the way to lunch when the side door swung open. A young acolyte stepped out in long white robes, holding a stack of hymnals.

[Church robes!!!]

I grabbed Lily around the waist and dove sideways into the hedge.

Branches cracked. Leaves went everywhere. Lily landed on top of me with a squeak. We lay there in the bushes while the acolyte’s footsteps passed by on the path.

"Kohaku," Lily whispered. There was a twig stuck in her hair. "Why are we in a hedge?"

"I thought I saw a bee!"

"A bee?"

"A really big bee!"

Lily stared down at me. Her eyes narrowed.

In other words, she no longer thought this was sweet. Now she thought it was suspicious.

[That’s okay! She doesn’t know anything! As long as I keep my cover, she’ll never figure it out!]

---

On Wednesday night, Lily sat on her bed brushing her hair while I checked the lock on our door. Then I checked the window. Then I checked the lock on the door again.

The hairbrush stopped.

"Kohaku."

"Yes, darling?"

"Sit down."

I sat down on the edge of my bed. Lily set her brush on the blanket very carefully, then turned to face me.

"You’ve walked me to every single class for three days," she said. "You waited outside the bath for almost an hour. You threw me into a hedge. You keep checking the door." Her voice was getting louder with every sentence. "And every single time anyone in a white robe walks by, you go completely pale! This is about the chaplain, isn’t it!?"

"What!? No! Why would you..."

"Don’t lie to me!"

Lily snatched up her pillow and threw it at me. It hit me square in the face.

"ACK!"

"I’m not stupid, Kohaku!" She was on her feet now, with her fists clenched at her sides. "You dragged me away from him in the middle of a conversation! Then you told me not to talk about my family! Then you started following me around everywhere! Something’s wrong, and you know what it is!"

"Lily..."

"If something is wrong, then I want to be part of it!" Her eyes were wet, but she was glaring at me. "I’m not some princess in a tower who needs to be protected! I’m your partner! I’m part of the operation! So stop protecting me and tell me what’s going on!"

I opened my mouth.

[... Well, you actually are a princess...]

Then I closed it again.

What could I say? Could I tell her she was secretly a princess? Could I tell her that her real family carried the bloodline of the Calamity Queen, and the Church of Lux might already be hunting her for it? I didn’t even know for sure whether the Church was after her. Every word would only scare her.

In other words, I couldn’t tell her anything.

"I..." I swallowed. "I’ll explain later. I promise."

"Later!?"

"I promise, Lily! I swear I’ll tell you everything! Just... not yet!"

Lily stood there breathing hard. Then she grabbed her pillow off my lap, stomped back to her bed, and lay down facing the wall.

"You’d better," she said into the blanket.

I sat there in the dark for a long time, staring at the back of her head.

---

I waited until Lily’s breathing slowed down. Then I opened the Manuscript and pulled up Recollection.

Up until now, I’d used it exactly once, to find out what Pryce’s black glass blade could do. It had saved my life. Tonight, I needed it to tell me why a man from the Church of Lux wanted to know where Lily came from.

There was only one answer I could think of.

MANUSCRIPT — Recollection Subject: The Calamity Queen Cost: 10 MP Current MP: 245

I pressed confirm.

The room vanished.

I was standing in a huge stone chamber, deep underground. The air was freezing. I couldn’t feel my body, and I couldn’t move, but I could see everything.

In the center of the chamber, a circle had been carved into the floor. It was enormous, wider than the academy’s great hall, packed with rings of symbols I didn’t recognize. Every line of it was glowing with white light.

There was someone standing in the middle of it.

I couldn’t see her clearly. She was a tall shape wrapped in black light, with her edges bending and flickering. All I could make out was a crown on her head. I couldn’t see a face. The pressure coming off her was so heavy that, even in a vision, I wanted to drop to my knees.

In other words, this was the Calamity Queen.

She was screaming. There was no sound, but I could see it. She was thrashing against the light, clawing at it, while the circle slowly closed around her. The glowing lines crawled up over her legs, then her waist, then her shoulders.

Then I looked at the people around the circle.

There were twelve of them, standing evenly spaced around the edge. They all wore long white robes with their hoods pulled up. Each one of them had both hands raised toward the circle, pouring light into it.

On every single robe, embroidered in silver across the chest, was a sunburst.

It was the sigil of the Church of Lux.

The light flared. The Queen gave one last silent scream, then she went still. The black shape folded in on itself, smaller and smaller, until it sank down into the center of the circle and disappeared beneath the stone.

The glowing lines dimmed. The twelve figures lowered their hands.

One of them stepped forward and knelt at the edge of the seal. He laid his palm flat on the stone.

"Until the blood returns," he said.

I came back with a gasp.

I was sitting on my bed in the dark. Lily was still asleep, facing the wall.

[Sealed!? She was sealed!?]

In my notes, the Calamity Queen was simply "an ancient evil." That was the entire description. I’d written that phrase when I was fifteen, then I’d never written anything else about her past. I’d always assumed some heroes had beaten her a long time ago, because that was what happened to ancient evils.

I’d never written a chamber. I’d never written a seal. I’d certainly never written twelve priests from the Church of Lux standing around it.

In other words, I hadn’t written any of this. I’d left a blank space, and the world had filled it in on its own.

The Church had been there from the very beginning.

I pressed both hands over my face.

[Of course it’s the evil church! Of course it is!]

When I was fifteen, I’d made the Church shady because zealots were easy. I’d given them secret conspiracies and a hatred of the Wildfolk, and I’d never thought about them again. It was the laziest, most unoriginal choice I’d ever made.

It was also completely right.

Up until tonight, I’d only suspected them. Pryce had carried a Church-marked sheath, and Dawnlight had reacted to the chaplain. Now I’d seen it with my own eyes. The Church of Lux had sealed the Calamity Queen, which meant they knew exactly what she was, where she was, and what it would take to bring her back.

"Until the blood returns."

I looked over at Lily.

She carried the Calamity Queen’s bloodline. I’d written that part myself. The chaplain had just asked her where her family was from.

[Okay, so they’re obviously looking for Lily, even if they haven’t figured out the girl they’re looking for is right here, but...]

The Church already had a plan. I was sure of it. Whatever they were going to do with that seal, they needed Lily’s blood to do it.

I just didn’t know how.

In other words, that was my next job. I needed to find out exactly what the Church was planning, and exactly how they were planning to do it, before the Winter Ball.