I Loaded the Occult Panel

Richard sat up straight in his chair.

He thought back to two years ago, by the windowsill on the second floor of the Imperial Capital University Library.

The two people who had spoken that afternoon were now separated—one on stage, one in the audience.

As the performance entered its fourth act and the scenery shifted, someone in the audience let out a low murmur of surprise.

The paradise of the Underworld was actually a gentlemen’s club.

Dark leather armchairs were lined up row by row, every single one occupied.

Massive oil paintings of hunting scenes covered the walls, their frames nearly overlapping.

Barefoot and carrying a kettle, Phillips walked down the aisle between the chairs.

Someone was sitting in the armchair at the very back. Phillips walked up to him and stopped.

The man lowered his newspaper. The theater was so quiet that someone sniffing in the audience could be heard clearly.The man stood up, looked Phillips up and down, and reached out to straighten his crooked collar.

The gesture was so practiced—so natural that Richard almost forgot it was a performance.

Then the man turned and pulled a drawing board from the wings.

A ladder leading upward was drawn on the board. Phillips shook his head.

Ignoring him, the man fished a paper-cut medal from his pocket and pinned it to Phillips’s chest.

The medal fell off. He picked it up and pinned it again, but it dropped a second time.

A few scattered, muted chuckles rippled through the audience.

The man bent down, picked up the medal, and pressed it into his son’s hand, curling his fingers closed one by one into a tight fist.

Then he raised his hand and pointed upward.

Everyone in the audience understood: the father wanted him to go back, to climb the ladder, and to hold the family up.

Phillips raised his fist clutching the medal and shook it.

He took a step forward, throwing his arms wide to hug his father.

The first time, the brims of their hats collided.

One hat tumbled off. Both men bent to pick it up at the exact same moment, knocking their foreheads together. The entire theater burst into laughter.

He learned his lesson for the second attempt. Taking off his hat, he placed it on a chair before spreading his arms and lunging forward again.

Somehow, the older man simply took a step to the side.

Phillips caught nothing but air. He staggered into a half-spin, only keeping his balance by grabbing the back of a chair.

The laughter continued, though quieter now.

The third time, he didn’t lunge.

He walked very slowly. One step. Two steps. He stopped right in front of the man, then ever so gently, he closed his arms.

His arms came together, but there was nothing between them.

The theater was dead silent.

On stage, Phillips held that pose for three full seconds.

Then he lowered his arms, shook out his sleeves, dusted off his lapels, turned around, and offered a deep bow to the audience.

The audience erupted in laughter again, though half of it was choked with sobs.

Richard felt as if something had firmly squeezed his heart.

The final act was very short, and the scenery on stage shifted once more.

A paperboy stood by a streetlamp while a few hurrying pedestrians crisscrossed the street.

Phillips stood beneath the lamplight. He patted both of his pockets—empty.

He pulled out his cup, peered inside, and tipped it over, but nothing fell into his palm.

Returning the cup to his pocket, he adjusted his nonexistent hat and straightened his collar.

Then he walked away. He still had the same spirited stride from the opening act, except he was missing a shoe.

Lopsided and limping, his halting steps landed perfectly on the drumbeats.

The crowd dispersed very slowly after the curtain call. The lady sitting to Richard’s left remained in her seat, a handkerchief tightly clutched in her hand.

It wasn’t until the cleaning women began sweeping orange peels from the aisles that she finally leaned on the back of the seat in front of her and stood up.

Richard lingered in his seat for a while longer.

The play hadn’t had a single line of dialogue from beginning to end, but he understood perfectly what it was asking:

If two identical people were standing side by side, why take one and leave the other?

The man on stage hadn’t asked anyone in particular.

He had acted that question into a play for a crowd of strangers to watch. When it was over, everyone would go home, and no one would have to give him an answer.

The answer he wanted was sitting in the third row.

..................

Phillips sat at the vanity, wiping cold cream across his face.

Layers of white powder came off, revealing his actual face beneath.

Only then did Richard realize the man was noticeably thinner than he’d been two months ago. His cheeks were practically sunken in.

”How was it?” Phillips asked the man behind him through the mirror.

Richard sat down on a stool by the door.

”Good. No... it was brilliant.”

Phillips smiled, the motion smearing the greasepaint left at the corner of his mouth.

He tossed the towel into the basin and turned around.

”Where’s the liquor?”

When they drank, they sat right on the stage.

The house lights were completely off. Only a single work lamp hung from the wings.

Phillips fished two teacups out of a prop chest. One was chipped, and the other still had chalk dust stuck to the bottom.

”These two were used as relics in The Returner just last month.”

”The Returner.” Richard looked at him.

”Who wrote that play?”

Phillips wiped the dust out of the cups with his sleeve.

”Not me, anyway,” he said.

Richard pulled out the bottle of liquor.

Phillips took it, popped the cork, and held it to his nose.

”Peat. The quality is a bit average, though.”

”Catherine’s exact words,” Richard replied, ”were that the expensive one goes to the professor, and I can take this leftover bottle to drink with Phillips.”

Phillips poured the liquor into the chipped cup.

”She’s still the same. Even when she doesn’t speak, she doesn’t spare anyone’s feelings.”

He raised his cup. ”To whom?”

Richard thought for a moment. ”To His Majesty, I suppose.”

”To His Majesty.” Phillips nodded.

”The old man swore off the drink, so we’ll just have to down his share for him.”

The two teacups clinked in the air with a dull thud.

As the liquor went down, Richard unexpectedly choked and coughed twice.

Phillips drank steadily. He downed it in one gulp and placed the cup back on the stage floor without a word.

”How was it?” Richard asked.

”Not bad.”

”What’s not bad about it?”

”...It burns.”

Richard waited for him to elaborate.

In the past, this guy could critique a cup of tea for fifteen solid minutes, covering everything from the degree of fermentation to the precise water temperature.

But no elaboration came.

”Tell me something happy.” Phillips nudged his cup over again.

”You go first. There’s always something going on with you.”

So Richard did.

He talked about his aunt’s sugar jar, and how Sophia had snuck so much sugar that not a single crystal could be knocked loose from the bottom;

he talked about his younger sister collapsing a meringue cake, then pressing her face to the oven for twenty minutes just to stare at it.

After she was done staring, she sliced it up and declared it a brand-new invention called the flat cake.

Phillips leaned back and laughed.

Richard then told him about Count Blackburn’s registry book.

”Ah, that book.” Phillips rubbed a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye. ”I bet you haven’t seen the volume rating the successful marriage matches.”

Richard was a bit surprised. ”It rates you?”

”Yep.” Phillips patted the stage floor.

”Constance showed it to me. I’m on page eleven.”

”What does it say?”

Phillips closed his eyes and rattled it off like a waiter listing the specials.

”’Second son of the Phillips family. Eighteen years old. Practitioner on the Scholar path. Mild temperament. Boasts an extensive book collection.’”

”’Boasts an extensive book collection.’ Her family probably spent a long time trying to come up with that one.”

”Other than that, there really wasn’t anything else worth writing about me.”

”How is Constance?” Richard asked.

”She comes on Thursdays.”

”Thursdays?”

”Every Thursday.” Phillips turned his cup halfway around.

”The edge seat in the very last row. When the show’s over, she waits at the door without saying a word, and just hands me an umbrella.”

”Do you two not talk?”

”We do, actually.” Phillips shook his head.

”Last week, she told me the transition in the second act went on too long and dragged for about half a minute.”

He tossed back the rest of his liquor.

”I still don’t plan on marrying someone I don’t know.”

Richard frowned. He was just about to offer a few words of advice when the rest of Phillips’s thought popped out.

”However... I suppose the two of us do know each other now.”

”Richard,” Phillips suddenly said.

”That morning in Whitby. The thing at the mouth of the cave.”

Richard’s hand, which was just about to pour more liquor, paused.

”It looked at two people. Now my dad is lying in a cemetery, and your grandfather is in his backyard tending to potted plants.”

The filament of the work lamp buzzed.

”I’m not placing blame,” Phillips said.

”It’s not like I don’t know your grandfather. The old gentleman is a good man.”

”I just want to know—why?”

Richard opened his mouth.

Truthfully, over the past year, he had grown increasingly adept at telling all sorts of lies.

Every time he delivered a beautifully crafted lie without batting an eye, the mask of Hermes would grow hot.

But this time, he came up empty.

”I don’t know how to answer you.”

Phillips stared at him. With the white powder washed away, his eyes seemed exceptionally bright.

”All right,” he said.

”I’ve already turned it into a play anyway.”

”Writing it into a play means no one actually has to answer me. Everyone watches it, and then they all just go home.”

He picked up the bottle and topped up both of their cups.

”Don’t look so grim. It’s not like I’m asking you to replace my dad.”

Richard lowered his head and downed the cup. This time, the liquor didn’t catch in his throat.

”Right.” Phillips pulled the kettle from the prop chest.

”Drinking this straight is too harsh. Let me pour you something else.”

He placed the kettle on the stage floor.

Richard’s Perception had reached lv5, granting him high-precision observation under any conditions.

He noticed that the chipped piece on the kettle’s spout had been repaired, but the mended patch didn’t look like porcelain.

”Your kettle...”

”They all get like that when you’ve seasoned them long enough.”

By the time Richard finished his drink and prepared to leave, the sky above the alley had yet to turn completely dark.

”I’ll walk you out to the street,” Phillips said, clutching his kettle.

”No need.”

”There’s no need to be polite.”

The two of them walked down the narrow alley together. Halfway there, Phillips suddenly spoke up.

”If you come by next week, don’t pick Thursday.”

A carriage was already waiting at the end of the alley.

Right before getting in, Richard glanced back. The stage door had already been shut.

..................

Mr. Barnaby was forty-three this year. He was the theater’s star actor, capable of playing several different roles all on his own.

”Has Mr. Williams left?”

”I walked him out to the street.”

”Did he notice anything?”

”He should have,” Phillips said.

The pipe in Barnaby’s hand paused in midair.

”How much did he notice?”

”He noticed that I don’t much like to talk anymore.”

Phillips turned his kettle around, letting the patched spout face upward.

”I’ve experienced those eyes of his before. He was staring at this kettle from the moment I poured the first cup today.”

Barnaby exhaled a puff of smoke. ”That young gentleman sees things clearly.”

”He saw things too late,” Phillips said.