Chapter 475: June Frost

Richard did not agree immediately.

[Speculation; Inner Awakening] lit up at that moment.

Writing the book himself would take several months at minimum, and that was the easiest task.

Then came waiting for him to reach Virtuoso—even if his path was perfectly smooth, it would take decades.

Finally, toppling the First Seat had no set deadline. Whether he succeeded didn't matter, as long as he made the attempt.

None of the man's conditions had to be fulfilled immediately, and none brought any harm to Richard himself.

Richard remembered what the man had said earlier.

"I send my teacher a postcard every Christmas just to let her know I'm still alive, so she keeps me in her thoughts."

"When someone keeps you in their thoughts, you have something to look forward to."

A volume of ghost stories every two months, a meeting decades down the line, and a game of chess where even he didn't know the ending... Richard had a rough idea of what Matthew was thinking.

"Deal."

"Straightforward." Matthew stood, and the chair reverted to its original shape as if relieved of a heavy burden.

"Sir, I'll add a bonus condition."

Matthew raised his eyebrows.

"I've never heard of a buyer voluntarily raising the price..."

Richard thought for a moment and said sincerely, "From now on, I'll send you a postcard every Christmas too."

The gas lamp in the room hissed. Matthew stood there in silence.

An expression Richard couldn't quite read crossed his sunburned face.

"...You brat."

He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned toward the wall.

"Fine. I'll let you know where to send it when the time comes."

He stopped by the wall.

"Oh, right."

"Sir?"

"I'll come that night, but don't warn anyone before I enter."

"...What do you mean?"

"Let her see for herself."

Richard stood up from the edge of the bed.

"You know her?"

Matthew didn't look back.

The path closed.

The smell of Briston's winter morning smog slowly faded from the room.

...

Matthew retreated through the wall and stood for a long time on that path only he could see.

There was nothing on either side.

He had carved out this road himself, and by now, even he couldn't say where it led.

But one thing about the path was fixed—any place he walked past once would still be there when he looked back.

So that mirrored room was still there.

Forty years ago, Matthew was chopping wood in the backyard that afternoon.

His teacher had many students, and they took turns doing the chores. It was his turn that month.

When someone pushed open the courtyard gate, he started to stand and greet them.

"Excuse me..."

It was a girl's voice, soft and gentle.

He looked up. The girl stood at the gate in a faded, washed-out dress, her hands wringing the hem.

She wasn't tall, and her hair was casually tied back.

"Who are you looking for?" Matthew sank his axe into the chopping block.

"Madam Marie Viktorova."

"She isn't seeing guests today."

The girl stood there, wringing her skirt even tighter.

Matthew had been following his teacher for two years by then. He had seen too many people standing in that exact spot.

Most of them came begging: begging for fortunes to be told, begging for lost items to be found, begging to call a dead loved one back for one last word.

"What are you begging for?"

"I'm not begging for anything," she said.

"If you're not begging, why are you here?"

"I came to learn."

Matthew had laughed then, just as carelessly as he did today.

"Learn?" He yanked the axe out of the block.

"Do you know how much a single year of study in this line of work costs?"

The girl dug a battered cloth pouch from her pocket.

She opened the pouch and flattened it across her palm.

Matthew walked over and took a look. Inside were coins.

They were all copper—pennies, half-pennies, and a few worn so smooth their face value couldn't be read—piled into a small mound.

"How much is there?"

"Four pounds and eleven shillings," the girl said.

"I counted it many times."

A bird chirped from the old plum tree in the backyard and flew away.

Matthew stood there, momentarily at a loss for words.

"I can work." She put the pouch away.

"I can wash clothes, light fires, and keep the books. I'm very fast with numbers. I could sort out this shop's accounts in a single day."

"I can do odd jobs too. Any kind of odd jobs."

In the end, his teacher took her in.

Matthew never figured out how his teacher made that decision.

He only remembered that evening when his teacher came out of the house, stood on the steps, watched the girl for a moment, and said:

"Come in. The water hasn't been fetched yet today."

Later, she sorted out the shop's accounts in just a few days. After that, his teacher never managed the books again.

She could identify seventeen medicinal herbs by smell—five more than Matthew.

The first time she took an Inspiration test, she got all twenty items right, scoring two items higher than Matthew had in his day.

Much later, when he sent a postcard back from the New Continent, his teacher's reply contained only one line: Understood.

At the end of the letter, his teacher had casually added a note.

That girl from the north had left last winter.

She hadn't taken anything with her, except for that Copper Dish.

Matthew stood on that path for a long time.

He pulled a hand from his pocket and stared at his own palm.

"...Time really does leave a mark on people."

He muttered, taking a step forward.

"Mid-June. A perfect time to go take a look."

June 12th, 10:00 PM.

Richard sat at his dorm room desk with three sheets of paper spread out in front of him.

The first listed the seven people who might take the field that night, detailing their traditions and Ranks one by one.

The second listed how many Swift Crossings he had left, how many Soul-Devouring Beast Tooth Needles remained, and how long his Spiritual Capacity could hold out.

The third was the shortest, holding only a single line: Outside Help; Pending.

He set down his pen and was just about to shut the window tight.

There was frost on the windowsill.

The weather in the Imperial Capital had already warmed up by June. That wall of the dorm building faced south and had baked in the sun all day; even at this hour, the bricks were still warm.

In the center of the ring of frost on the outer edge of the sill sat a bird. Completely white and slightly larger than a sparrow, it neither moved nor made a sound.

Richard spread out Still Water, and the bird revealed its layered structure within the watery reflection.

The outermost layer was the standard structure of a Spirit Realm Messenger.

Its grade wasn't high, several tiers worse than the ones Hecate tossed out.

Richard stared at the layer beneath it for a long time.

The direction of every single feather on this bird was perfect.

The angle of the wing coverts, the fork of the tail feathers, even the subtle curve of the third joint on its toes were perfectly accurate.

Crafting a messenger never required going this far. As long as a messenger could fly and knew the way, it was enough.

This bird had been constructed around a real skeleton.

The person who made it had pieced that skeleton together, bone by bone, with their own hands.

At that thought, Richard pushed the window wide open.

The bird flew in and landed on the corner of the desk. Two items tumbled out of the frost: a square package wrapped in oiled paper, and a letter.

Then, it simply waited.

Richard first took the Sacred Ibis Bronze Paperweight and the Small Bronze Balance from his canvas bag, setting them on the left and right sides of the desk.

Following Madam Marie's instructions from that night, all his divination tools were locked away in the drawer, but weighing was his own craft.

The long beak of the sacred ibis tilted toward the square package.

The package was so clean it didn't look like any parcel he had handled over the past year.

Only then did he begin to unwrap the oiled paper. The contents inside were wrapped layer upon layer in old newspapers.

The newspaper was in a foreign language with densely packed lead type. He recognized the top line—Prague.

The first thing to fall out was a dark red stone, polished into an irregular oval.

The stone didn't look like much under the lamp, but a slight turn of the angle caused a small cluster of red to flare up.

Next was a wooden knight marionette about the size of a palm. Four strings sprouting from the top of its head had tangled into a knot, twisting the knight sideways with one leg dangling in mid-air.

When Richard picked up the next item, his hand paused.

It was a small segment of a pressed branch, sandwiched between two sheets of transparent paper.

The leaves grew in opposite pairs and had a leathery texture. The two berries at the tip had been squashed flat, though they still retained a hint of translucent white.

It was mistletoe.

The final item, pressed at the very bottom, was a letter.

There was no postmark on the envelope, only a name: Richard.

He recognized the handwriting at a glance.

Richard:

It is raining in Prague as I write this letter.

June here is much hotter than in Briston. The roofs are red, and the river water is green.

I live in an attic in the Old Town. My landlady doesn't speak the Albion Language, so we have spent the past three months communicating through gestures.

I am attending lectures at Charles University. The library here has been excavated downward since the fourteenth century, continuing to this day.

I went all the way down to the deepest level, where the wood of the bookshelves has been chewed full of holes by something.

I am learning the Germanic language well enough, but Czech is very difficult. I can only say a few daily greetings.

I am still making specimens. The tools here are better than in the Imperial Capital. I brought that titmouse with me and placed it on the windowsill.

I need to explain the items in the paper package so you don't go examining them with your Spirit Vision.

They won't show anything; they are all just ordinary objects.

The stone is Bohemian garnet. The locals say it helps with sleep.

I bought the knight marionette in an alley behind the Old Town Square.

By the way, I wanted to ask you something.

There is a professor at Imperial Capital University named Professor MacFie. He wrote a book called Structure and Evolution of Ancient Gaelic Scripts.

Do you know him?

If you do, what kind of person is he?

I now have a name given to me by someone else. That name comes from a place very far north, holding dominion over winter and the hunt.

In February, I saw the professor once in a very distant place. He did not make a move against me that time.

I've thought about it for a long time, but I still can't figure out why.

There is one more thing I'm not sure if I should tell you. My hands have been cold all year.

Wearing gloves doesn't help, and soaking them in hot water only works for a little while.

I've seen a doctor twice, but they couldn't find anything wrong.

If you feel you shouldn't reply to this letter, then don't. The messenger will return on its own.

Also, I still have that four-leaf clover.

Lillian Hayward

Richard set the piece of paper on the desk.

The titmouse on the windowsill remained completely motionless.

Of course he knew about what had happened in February. Hecate had mentioned it in passing at that gathering.

When she brought it up, Richard had mentally cheered for Professor MacFie.

At the same time, he had casually helped Catherine show off a bit, subtly raising his own prestige in the process.

He sat at the desk, beginning to ponder.

Holding dominion over winter and the hunt, combined with the Nordic table...

[Erudition] automatically indexed the information. Wasn't that Skadi, the Goddess of Winter?