I Loaded the Occult Panel

Evelyn climbed up to the head of the bed and tugged at her brother’s quilt, only to jerk her hand back the instant her fingers brushed his skin.

She had hated the cold ever since she was little.

Frozen by the headboard, the young girl looked at her brother, then turned back to her grandfather.

Gerard’s face, stern his entire life, was completely blank.

”He said yesterday that he was going to sleep early,” Evelyn said, her voice beginning to tremble.

”He said he was tired... He said...” She couldn’t go on.

She turned away as tears welled up and spilled over all at once.

Sniffling, she climbed back to the head of the bed, bit her lip, and pulled her brother’s cold hand out from under the quilt. She cupped it between her own and breathed warm air into her palms, rubbing his hand after every breath.

She rubbed it for a long time, yet that hand stayed cold.

Meanwhile, at the railway bridge construction site north of Briston, the wind swept up from the river, cutting painfully against the skin.A postman rode his bicycle down the embankment, shouting Rogers’s name at the top of his lungs. The urgent telegram from Margaret was only a single line: ”Richard ill, unconscious and won’t wake, come quickly, don’t panic.”

The moment Rogers finished reading it, he stuffed the telegram into his breast pocket.

”I have to go,” he told the foreman.

”You’re not off until the twenty-fourth...”

”I have to leave today. Something happened to my son.”

”What about the measurements for the crossbeam...”

”Just follow the numbers I gave you yesterday. Don’t change a thing.”

Without even stopping by his house, he ran straight to the train station. The clerk at the ticket window told him that second-class seats for the day were sold out, and there were no third-class seats left either.

”What about standing tickets?”

”We have standing tickets, but you’ll be on your feet the whole way.”

”Then give me a standing ticket.”

In the western district of the Imperial Capital, the scent of cardamom had been drifting through a three-story Western-style house since early morning. Wearing an apron, Grey sat at the long kitchen table.

Her mother leaned against the kitchen doorway. ”For Ashford House again?”

”They’re for Evelyn,” Grey murmured.

”Can Evelyn finish two whole boxes by herself?”

The pestle in Grey’s hand paused for a second before she went back to grinding.

Her mother smiled and didn’t press any further.

A maid called out from the landing of the stairs, ”Miss, a telephone call from Ashford House. It’s Miss Evelyn.”

Grey wiped her hands on her apron, a smile still on her face as she ran out to pick up the receiver. ”Evelyn? I told you, the shortbread won’t be ready until this afternoon...”

There was no sound from the other end of the line.

After a long pause, a heavy sniffle finally came through.

”Sister Grey,” Evelyn said, her voice terribly hoarse. ”My brother... my brother fell asleep, and he won’t wake up.”

Grey stood frozen at the foot of the stairs, gripping the receiver.

”What do you mean he won’t wake up?”

”He just won’t wake up! I tickled the soles of his feet and he didn’t move at all. His hands are cold, Grandfather laid a knife across the doorway, and Mother was coughing for a long time... She went to call Auntie...”

The more Evelyn spoke, the more frantic and jumbled her words became, until nothing was left but sobs. ”Can you come over?”

”I’ll be right there.”

Grey hung up the phone and turned to find her mother already standing behind her.

”I’ll have the driver take you. Bring that tin of Ceylon tea with you, and when you see his lordship, remember to...”

Grey simply shook her head and ran back into the kitchen.

Her sleeve caught the stone mortar, knocking it to the floor and sending cardamom seeds rolling everywhere.

In the dormitory area of Imperial Capital University, that very same morning.

The more Clara thought about the past few days, the more wrong it all felt. She was a Minor Adept drawing a lecturer’s salary, yet here she was competing for a man alongside girls several years younger than her.

Walking down the plane-tree avenue, she pressed her hands against her burning cheeks. ...How childish. And to think she used to look down on love-struck girls more than anyone else.

And then that night... Ugh.

At first, she had only treated her mentor’s nephew like a younger brother who needed looking after. Later, after Richard healed her ears, she started worrying over him in turn.

And after that came the Rubbing Machine... She had given Sophia far more gifts over the years, yet she had never put that much care into a single one of them.

That was where everything had started going off course.

By the time Clara reached the end of that train of thought, she was already standing outside the doors of the Petrie Building.

Stopping before the steps, she made up her mind: she couldn’t go on like this anymore.

Her mentor had fought to secure a Seventh-Grade salary for her and declared that Room 314 was going to produce ”three Minor Adepts under one master.” She was the first, and everyone behind her was watching her example.

Her uncle was the only Minor Adept in their family, and now that she had reached this step too, the two of them would be the ones upholding the family name from here on out.

And for her own sake as well, Clara wanted to see the view from higher up.

She laid out a schedule for herself:

For the spring semester, she would apply to take on two extra classes of preparatory Latin prose, and she would handle the inscription portion of Associate Professor Greer’s survey on industrial vulnerabilities;

She would sign up next semester to serve as an assistant judge for Debate Week;

Every Wednesday afternoon, she would hold Q&A sessions for undergraduates and preparatory students... And as for Richard’s tutoring, she had to hand that back to her mentor.

When she entered Room 314, Isabella was unwrapping a piece of candy behind a stack of telegrams sent back from the front lines.

Sophia had her legs propped up on another chair, a book in her hands and a biscuit dangling from her mouth.

”Mentor,” Clara said, stepping up to the desk. ”There are a few things I’d like to apply for.”

She laid out her entire plan.

Isabella looked up by the time she reached the second item. ”You’re practically nailing yourself to the university at this rate.”

”I was just promoted. Now is the time for me to work harder,” Clara said, her gaze firm.

”Besides, the department has always complained that I take on too few teaching hours as a lecturer.”

Isabella stared at her for a moment before a gratified smile slowly spread across her face.

”Good. Now that’s what a lecturer should look like.”

She pulled out an application form and signed her name with a few quick strokes of her pen.

”Clara!” Sophia took the biscuit out of her mouth.

”If you do the work of four people all by yourself, Mentor is going to sigh every time she looks at the rest of us from now on.”

”You should be doing more work to begin with,” Clara said.

”I did! I spent all yesterday afternoon copying telegrams!”

”You copied for twenty minutes and spent the rest of the time reading that book.”

Sophia opened her mouth, then narrowed her eyes and sized Clara up from head to toe.

”Did something provoke you at the wedding?”

”No.”

”Then why are you dropping Richard’s tutoring?”

Clara opened her mouth, but no words came out.

”Alright, that’s enough,” Isabella said, popping the remaining half of the candy into her mouth. ”It really is time to pause Richard’s tutoring for a while. He’s been learning fast enough as it is; he needs some time to digest it all.”

Clara let out a breath of relief, yet her chest felt strangely hollow.

She tucked the application form into her handbag. ”Then I’ll head over to the department office to submit this first...”

The telephone on the desk rang.

With the candy still in her mouth, Isabella mumbled into the receiver, ”...Hello? Sis? What is it?”

A voice spoke on the other end of the line.

Isabella crunched the candy between her teeth and bolted to her feet.

”When did this...

”...Dad is there?... Alright, I’m coming right now.

”Don’t touch him. Whatever you do, don’t move him... Sis, stop coughing too.”

She set the receiver back on the cradle, snatched up a coat, and shoved her arms through it, only to realize the sleeves were too long.

”Mentor,” Sophia said, her expression shifting at once, ”that’s my coat.”

Isabella glanced down, yanked the coat off, tossed it back to her, and reached for her own.

”Something happened to Richard.”

The pencil in Clara’s hand snapped in her grip.

So much for keeping her distance from her junior brother—she hadn’t even lasted a single morning.

Elsewhere in the Petrie Building, two Major Adepts were also discussing Richard’s coma.

MacFie went straight to the point. ”What do you make of it?”

”I’d say he definitely won’t die,” Mortimer replied, shifting his cane to his other hand.

”That boy is sharper than anyone. If he dared to go, he already worked out a way back. Besides...”

”He still has a library card in his pocket, and the book hasn’t been returned yet.”

MacFie frowned. ”What library card?”

”You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Mortimer said, waving a hand.

”I’m heading to Ashford House right now. Are you coming?”

”I’m coming.”

Mortimer asked in slight puzzlement, ”Aren’t you going to tell that girl?”

Catherine had a harder heart than Clara, and she was far more decisive too.

On the second day after the wedding, she had applied for a field assignment with the Highlands Guild’s frontline purification squad.

Leaning back in his chair at the time, MacFie had seen right through her at a glance.

”Running off in such a hurry—are you chasing after something, or hiding from something?”

Even so, he had approved her request.

The front lines badly needed people to clear out the evil creatures fed by poison gas, gather the dying echoes festering in the mud, and record the names of the dead to send back to their home villages.

Her eldest uncle and her uncle Duncan, both Minor Adept Hunters, had also arrived at the front lines and could keep an eye on her while they were there.

Thinking of this, the white-haired giant let out a dry chuckle.

”What good would telling her do?”

”She’s north of Ypres. To come back, she’d first have to get approval from her captain, then go to the Quartermaster Department for a travel pass.”

”From there, she’d have to catch a ride to Poperinge, wait for a train to Calais, and then wait for a boat across the channel.”

”If things go smoothly, it takes five days. If not, two weeks.”

Mortimer said nothing more.

MacFie shook his head. ”Let her finish her work over there first. If that boy still hasn’t woken up by then...”

Just picturing how that girl would react when she returned from the front lines and found out they had kept this from her gave him a headache.

When the two professors arrived at Richard’s room, Isabella gripped the armrests of her chair to stand up as soon as she saw them enter.

”Stay seated,” the old professor said, waving a hand.

”Last time I stole someone else’s chair, so now I get nervous whenever anyone offers me a seat.”

Isabella was in no mood for his banter.

She pulled a toolkit from her handbag, pressed an inspection mirror against her nephew’s chest, and turned it over a dozen seconds later.

An inverted tree floated across the surface of the mirror, its roots anchored behind his breastbone and its branches spreading along his blood vessels all the way to his fingertips.

”His pathways are intact, with no breaks or blockages.”

”The Seat of the Sun is glowing, and a steady warmth is seeping outward from his chest. He’s keeping himself warm on his own.”

As for damage to his spirit, Isabella’s simple testing tools couldn’t detect anything for now.

”What about his signature artifact?” Mortimer asked.

Margaret rose and walked to the suitcase at the foot of the bed, lifting out neatly folded shirts one by one before prying open a hidden compartment at the bottom.

”...He thought I didn’t know about it.”

Hugging her biscuit tin, Sophia muttered under her breath, ”Mothers are terrifying.”

Isabella carefully lifted out the Sphinx Lamp. On its bronze surface, the eyelids of the human face drooped in a doze.

She cupped the lamp in her palms. ”It’s still very warm. In fact, I think it’s even warmer than usual...”

That was deeply strange. Whenever something went wrong with an owner, their signature artifact was always the first thing to grow cold.

MacFie raised his right hand, holding it palm-down above the bed.

Frost-like cold light drifted down, making even the shadows of the bedposts shrink inward.

”There’s no lingering entanglement or mark from an evil creature on him either. How strange...”

...

”Ring-ring-ring!!!”

A brass handbell, the kind rung right before an examination begins, suddenly clamored to life.

Whoever was shaking it was terribly impatient, clanging it all the way from the left side of the hall to the right.

Jolted awake by the bell, Richard instinctively scrambled up and sat straight.

He realized his chest didn’t hurt, his hands and feet were all in place, and even the hollow ache left behind when that wisp of spirit was torn away had vanished. His whole body felt so light he could practically float.

He looked around.

The great hall stretched so far he couldn’t see the end of it. A green lamp glowed on every desk, though most of the seats behind them were empty.

On both sides, bookshelves rose tier upon tier into the unfathomable darkness above.

There was no ceiling overhead either—only more bookshelves.

Looking at this endless sea of books, Richard had a pretty good idea of where he was.

Then he spotted a blackboard standing directly ahead, with words written across it in chalk: ”This examination hall serves as the reading room.

1. No eating or drinking.

2. No whispering or talking.

3. No cheating tools permitted.

4. No feigning sleep.”

Richard stared at the fourth rule in slight bewilderment.

Beside the blackboard stood a podium, and behind it a middle-aged man of average build, around forty years old.

Richard stood up.

”Sir, where is this?”

The administrator didn’t even look up. ”Sit down. The bell has already rung; the examination has begun.”

Out of habit, Richard reached up to check if his mask was on his face, only for his hand to meet empty air.

”Your belongings are over there,” the administrator said, pointing toward the entrance with a pencil.

By the door stood a small counter with a sign propped up on it: Personal Belongings Checkroom.

Pinned beneath the sign was an inventory list:

One mask (Golden Snake Biting Its Tail, contains the God of Trickery; classified as an exam cheating tool, temporarily confiscated).

One hat (smells like dog; invisible examinees are not permitted in the examination hall, temporarily confiscated).

One pair of shoes (winged; flying is prohibited in the examination hall, temporarily confiscated).

One staff (there are no envoys in the examination hall, only examinees, temporarily confiscated).

Richard read the list from top to bottom and felt a strong urge to tear it to shreds.

”When did I check these in?”

”When you walked through the door.”

”How come I don’t remember walking through any door?”

”Examinees generally don’t.”

Next to the checkroom stood a separate glass cabinet labeled: Lost Property — Temporary Storage. Inside lay the Smoking Mirror, three Soul-Devouring Beast Tooth Needles, and a Light-Storing Pocket Watch.

The administrator took a pencil from behind his ear.

”This library closed once on your behalf and retrieved your belongings from two different mouths.”

He tapped the register with his pencil. ”By custom, I need to charge a small handling fee.”

”Of course, this library does not take money. We only require your manuscript.”

Richard drew in a breath and plastered on the same smile he had used back in Genoa. ”Sir, could we possibly discuss paying in installments...”

”Back to your seat,” the administrator said, rapping the blackboard.

”The first session is about to begin. The sooner you finish answering the questions, the sooner you can leave.”

Left with no choice, Richard returned to his seat, only then realizing that he wasn’t the only examinee in the hall.

In the farthest corner of the hall, a solitary lamp draped in black gauze burned dimly.

Beneath the lamp sat an elderly gentleman in mourning dress, writing a eulogy.

Its face shifted incessantly: one moment a child, the next an old man, then the long face of a horse, and the next the silhouette of a city. A card at the corner of its desk read: Author Unknown.

This is the final page before the subject’s descent into chaos, archived by this library.

Watching that ever-shifting face, Richard widened his eyes, having already guessed who this fellow was.

The face settled into the likeness of a kindly old man and gave him a slight bow.

”Hello there. Who are you here to see off?”

”...I’m not seeing anyone off.”

”Now that is truly rare,” the old gentleman said mildly before bowing his head to resume writing his eulogy.

...

By the time Rogers reached Chelsea Road, it was already one-forty in the morning.

At that late hour, there were no cabs to be hailed outside the train station, so he had carried his canvas bag and walked briskly all the way from King’s Cross to Chelsea, overtaking several night-patrol policemen along the route.

Evelyn rubbed her eyes and sat up. ”Dad, you smell like a train.”

”Stood the whole way,” Rogers said, the bags under his eyes deeply swollen. ”Have you eaten?”

”I had a cup of tea. The Salvation Army handed it out.”

Evelyn’s brows shot up before drooping back down, and she turned her head toward the bed. ”Brother hasn’t eaten either.”

That night, Rogers sat by the bed with Margaret beside him.

The two of them talked about the autumn before last, when their son had lain there just like this, burning with such a fever that even the quilt had grown damp;

They talked about the Riefler drafting set Rogers had sold—its brass case lined with velvet—in exchange for three bottles of quinine and a chicken;

And they talked about how their son had opened his eyes on his own on the fourth day, and how the very first thing out of his mouth was that he needed to find a part-time job.

Later on, Rogers fell asleep leaning back against the sofa in the study.

Carrying a bowl of oatmeal downstairs to look for someone, Grey spotted him through the study doorway and stopped dead in her tracks.

Startled awake by the footsteps, Rogers opened his eyes and looked at the girl standing in the doorway in an apron, holding a tray.

”You’re...” He weighed his words carefully. ”The one who drove him home in a motorcar back in secondary school?”

Grey’s face flushed crimson all the way to the tips of her ears. Back then, Evelyn had declared that her brother was being kept by a wealthy patron, and Rogers had remembered it ever since.

”I... yes,” Grey said, holding the tray out. ”Uncle, please have something to eat first.”

Mindful that Evelyn was still in Richard’s room, Isabella called her sister, her father, and the two professors out into the corridor.

”Something isn’t right with his condition.

”A sleeping person rolls over, frowns, and smacks their lips in their dreams.

”He hasn’t moved an inch in thirty hours, and his pulse hasn’t sped up or slowed down by a single beat.”

Isabella pulled a vernier caliper from her handbag.

”Last night, I happened to measure the third notch on his signature artifact, and I measured it again this morning.”

She held the caliper up under the corridor light.

”It grew. Only by the width of a single strand of hair, but it grew.”

The metamorphosis of a signature artifact was the yardstick of its owner’s mastery; it relied on the owner nourishing it daily with ether, as well as undergoing all manner of practical field experience.

”No one is feeding it, yet it’s growing on its own,” Isabella said in bewilderment.

”I’ve never seen anyone in a situation like this. Professor, have you?”

Mortimer hadn’t seen it either. ”A signature artifact is bound to its master. For it to undergo metamorphosis on its own means...”

”Means what?”

The old professor didn’t answer right away. Leaning on his cane, he deliberated for a moment before giving his conclusion.

”I originally estimated that he would wake up in two nights at most, but now it may take longer...”

That afternoon, the study doors were shut. After an hour of debate inside, they finally decided to send for Hale from Bart’s.

Mortimer made the introduction:

”He’s a Major Adept of the Secret path in the Solar Tradition, famous throughout the circle. Word has it he sat beneath the Pool of Bethesda for thirty years to complete his advancement.”

”The Solar Tradition only knows how to burn people,” Gerard said with a frown.

”I’ve been on the receiving end more than a few times. Every burning leaves you bedridden for ten days to half a month.”

Beside him, the white-haired giant yawned. ”Send for him. The boy is young; he can handle a burning.”

A telegram was sent out, and the reply arrived by evening—only two lines:

”Will arrive at three in the afternoon on the twenty-sixth; must visit an important friend on Christmas Day.

”Keep the patient as he is, do not move him. —”

Isabella flared with irritation, though the wind quickly went out of her sails. She knew the friend he was visiting was most likely the old earl of the Montagu Family.

Clearly, in the man’s eyes, Ashford House carried far less weight than the Montagu Family—after all, the Montagus boasted an ancestor who had been a Virtuoso of the Solar Tradition as well.

That night, a black cat squeezed through the crack of the kitchen back door with a wax-sealed letter in its mouth.

It set the letter on the long kitchen table, glanced at the soup simmering on the stove, and squeezed right back out through the crack.

Inside the letter was only a single line: Neither I nor anyone I know can handle this. —.

After reading it, Gerard folded the letter with great care and tucked it into his breast pocket.

”...She didn’t even come through the door!”

Isabella felt as though things had taken a sudden, sharp turn for the worse; not a single person their family knew could be of any use.

Gerard let out a sigh as well. ”She’s telling us that this is a door she cannot knock open.”

On Christmas morning, a light snow fell over the Imperial Capital, too thin even to cover the coal soot.

Gerard had not set foot inside a church in twenty years.

That morning, he went alone to St. Luke’s Church, sat in the very last pew, and watched the entire Mass from start to finish.

At the landing of the stairs, not a single candle had been placed on the fir tree.

The Christmas pudding sat untouched in the kitchen, while gifts lay piled beneath the tree:

A pair of gray gloves knitted by Margaret, a box of Gingerbread Rabbits from Evelyn, and a wicker basket sent over by Grey’s mother.

The butler asked his master whether the three o’clock Christmas dinner should still be served as usual.

Gerard had no heart for it at all. ”We’ll celebrate after he wakes up.”

At three o’clock sharp on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, Hale arrived in a carriage belonging to the Montagu Family, not a single minute late.

He was a short man with a slightly hunched back and a neatly trimmed white beard.

The Major Adept carried an old leather suitcase containing nothing but a burnished brass disc.

Stepping over the knife laid across the threshold, Hale spoke his very first words: ”Draw back the curtains.”

When the butler drew them halfway open, Hale added, ”All the way.”

The December afternoon sunlight was pale and weak, yet the moment he raised the brass disc before the window, the room blazed as bright as high noon in August.

Everyone in the room below the rank of Major Adept shielded their eyes, and even the flames in the fireplace burned stark white.

As the sunlight fell across Richard’s bed, Hale narrowed his eyes and examined him from head to toe, over and over again.

”The pathways are sound, the lungs are sound, the heart is sound...”

With every phrase he spoke, Isabella’s fingers clenched a fraction tighter.

”There is no illness and no injury. There is nothing here to burn.”

”Then why won’t he wake up?” Margaret asked.

Hale didn’t answer. He leaned down, staring fixedly at the patch of shadow on the pillow.

The shadow was thin, and beneath that nearly blinding light, it revealed a small, square mark—just like a library stamp pressed onto a page.

Hale stared at that stamp for a long time, the color slowly draining from his face.

After learning from Isabella that the Sphinx Lamp was undergoing metamorphosis on its own, he gave his verdict. ”The patient’s consciousness has been summoned away. Since his signature artifact is still metamorphosing, it means he isn’t sitting idle over on the other side.”

He straightened up and returned the brass disc to his suitcase, plunging the room back into dimness.

”I cannot cure him.”

”Back in 1881, there was a similar case. A man was sitting in the domed reading room of the Albion Museum when he simply fell asleep right in his chair. No one noticed anything was wrong until the following day.”

”What happened after that?” Clara asked in a tiny voice.

Hale looked somewhat awkward. ”Later on, he woke up on his own. That was in 1884—he slept just like that for three years.”

Not a sound came from anyone in the room.

”Wait it out,” Hale said.

”Or else invite someone of a higher Rank than me to go knock on that door. Still, if they fail to knock it open, that’s one thing—if they actually manage to knock it open...”

Leaving the sentence unfinished, he stepped back over the knife and left without even asking for a consultation fee.

As the door clicked shut, a chunk of coal collapsed inside the fireplace.

Gerard spoke up. ”If we are to invite a Virtuoso, they rarely take money. What they demand is a family’s foundational wealth and servants to do their bidding.”

Sitting in the corner, Clara hadn’t said a word the entire time.

Staring at the pile of things on the table, she abruptly stood up.

”I’m a lecturer. My salary isn’t much, but... my uncle’s workshop is booked all the way into next year, and I can go beg him...”

As she spoke, she reached up to touch the Silver Tuning Fork Brooch at her collar, only to let her hand fall away a moment later.

It was only a replica. She clenched her fingers into a fist.

Leaning against the door, Sophia suddenly spoke up. ”I can write a letter home.”

Isabella turned her head to look at her.

In the five or six years Sophia had studied under her, she had never once gone home for Christmas, nor had her family ever sent a single letter.

”You never write home,” Isabella said, frowning.

”Which is why this one letter will work,” Sophia replied, every trace of her usual carefree smile gone from her face.

Grey was pulled into the room by Evelyn.

Standing in the doorway, she twisted her apron in her hands. ”My father said the Auckland can be...”

”Child,” Gerard cut in, ”a ship is of no use in this matter.”

”Then what is of use?” Grey asked. ”Tell me, and I’ll go get it.”

Gerard did not answer.

Standing beside Grey, Evelyn’s eyes were swollen into narrow slits.

”Grandfather, the tuition money you set aside for me—you can count that in too.”

”Nonsense!”

Margaret let out a sigh and led her daughter and Grey out of the room.

The door opened again, and Rogers stood on the threshold. ”How much does it cost to hire a better doctor?”

No one in the room spoke.

”The house in Briston can be mortgaged for forty pounds,” Rogers said, flipping open a small notebook.

”And there’s a pension fund with the railway company. If I withdraw it early, I can pull together...”

”Rogers,” Gerard said, rising to his feet. ”Money is of no use at all in this.”

All Rogers knew was that his son had fallen ill, that there were people in this house who understood such matters, and that those people were trying to find a way.

He waited for a moment, and when no answer came, he turned to leave on his own.

”...When there’s something you can use me for, count me in.”

”There is one other way,” Gerard said in a low voice, slowly sinking back into his chair.

”I owed that antlered one a favor once before. Owing it a second time is nothing more than...”

”Out of the question.” Having stayed silent from start to finish, the old professor planted his cane on the floor and stood up.

”That is the very thing it’s waiting for.

”If you open your mouth to beg it, it can easily send someone over with a wave of its hand, and the debt incurred will fall on Ashford House as well.

”That boy nearly gave half his life to settle the score with it—don’t turn around and put him right back in its debt.”

Gerard looked at him and said nothing more.

”I’ll go,” Mortimer said.

”Go where?”

”The Royal Anthropological Institute.”

Realization struck Isabella at once, and her expression changed.

Mortimer spoke slowly. ”Both sides belong to the Classical Records Tradition. We can speak on common ground.”

MacFie, who had been sitting on the floor with his back against the bookshelf the whole time, spoke up now:

”I’ll write to Stroma and ask my fellow disciple to lend a hand again.”

”The one you want to invite is a Vortex!” Mortimer hurriedly stopped him; those two fellow disciples were cut from the exact same cloth of reckless brutes.

”If a Vortex goes knocking on the library’s door and washes their bookshelves down, by then...”

The white-haired giant waved a hand in a chopping motion.

”If the bookshelves get washed down, the books fall out, and he falls right out with them.”

Mortimer shot him a glare and buttoned up his coat. ”I’m going tonight. Once an agreement is reached, we will hold the summoning right in this room.”

...

On the fourth night of Yule, after running through the first half of the night, the Wild Hunt rested high above the North Sea.

Clutching the roster in his arms, the Old Scholar reined his horse over to the side of the lord of the hunt.

”About the Honored Envoy’s share of fortune, should we...”

”I already told you, wait until Yule is over,” the lord of the hunt snapped impatiently.

”The spoils of war can wait—those two items require him to wake up and choose for himself, and he has to claim his messenger on his own as well.”

The Old Scholar flipped toward the front of the roster. ”But fortune cannot wait. It follows a person, and every night it rides beside your saddle, a little more of it seeps into you.

”Once all twelve nights have been run, there will be no telling which part is yours and which part is his.”

”All the better if there’s no telling,” the lord of the hunt blurted out before thinking.

The Old Scholar pretended not to hear. ”When an account cannot be told apart, the rules count it as a debt.

”A debt accrues interest, and besides, he is currently sitting inside a Master’s reading room...”

The lord of the hunt remembered that night in Milan, when it had bowed its head and counted more than four thousand three hundred roof tiles. A flake of frost fell from its antlers.

”...Give it to him,” it said, unfastening the Horn from its saddle.

”Follow the same route as last time. Which family name did he sink his fortune into before?”

”Ashford.”

”This time, the fortune will only be greater. The unwillingness of two Virtuosos—a single mouthful of it is worth ten thousand ordinary ones.”

The voice of the lord of the hunt sounded muffled. ”What a bargain for that boy.”

Poured from the Horn, the fortune had neither color nor sound as it flowed straight toward the south.

In the roster, the Old Scholar wrote: The Honored Envoy’s fortune, paid in full.