Chaos and calamity slipped in like frost under a door. The continent had just caught its breath from the Demon World’s turmoil, and a greater storm fell without warning. Rose Town, a hamlet thin as mist, welcomed a stranger.
“Miss, would you like a bouquet? They’re cheap…” Caro watched a girl in green drift toward the shop like a willow branch on water. When the girl stepped inside, Caro finally saw the dullness in her eyes—no spark, no dawn. She’d seen many eyes lit like lanterns. These held no light at all.
She’s blind. The thought struck like a pebble in a still pond. “Miss, I’m sorry. I didn’t notice your eyes…” Though she sat in a wheelchair, Caro bowed her head, letting apology settle like rain.
After the apology, she lifted her gaze and looked carefully.
That face was cold past the edge of winter, a beauty carved in jade and sealed in ice. She didn’t know what the girl had frozen against—perhaps the world’s spite, perhaps fate’s crooked hand. The girl chose cold as her voice.
The girl stood at the threshold like a statue cut from pale stone.
“Miss, do you need help?”
For no reason she could name, Caro’s unease crawled like ants across her skin. The source sat right in front of her, a beauty too perfect for a human name. At last, the girl moved. She raised her jade-pale hands; a green jade bracelet circled her right wrist. The instant Caro met that glint, her world tilted—sky and earth spun—she fell as if into a cut between dimensions.
When she came to, she was inside a black cage. Cold floor. Cold walls. Water dripped, its sound sharp as metal in the hollow dark. Plink, plink…
“Is anyone there?”
Her voice ran around the empty world and came back like a ghost. She tried to move. Iron chains bit her wrists and ankles; when she twisted, the links moaned and echoed like a nest of snakes.
Chained. Caro felt along the iron. She couldn’t see in the pitch, but her fingers told the story: thick, cruel, cold…
Then shock cut through her. Her legs—her paralyzed legs—had feeling. They moved. “Is this fate playing tricks? I’ve longed for legs that could run free, and fate gives them… at the price of a black prison?”
She didn’t know how long the dark held her. Suddenly, three clawed lines ripped the night. Blinding white light poured through the cracks like dawn breaking a coffin.
“A miracle. In Saya’s Song, I didn’t expect a human to remain human. Can’t figure you people out. Cat Lord can’t figure you out.” The voice came through the fissure, lazy as a sunnap and a little abrasive.
Hope flared like a candle. In all her time trapped, it was the first voice besides the drip.
Ka-cha, ka-cha…
Black shards peeled from the cracks. More white flooded the black like waves.
A sharp rasp. In the ink-dark cage, another panel split into three white wounds. This time Caro saw it—claws, a paw veiled in white fur, carving rifts into the prison.
The longer it went, the more cracks spread; light grew fierce enough to sting. Finally, a shattering peal rang through the world. Everything broke. The dark fell like glass.
She opened her eyes and gasped at the familiar room. A silver-haired boy, sixteen or seventeen, stood before her; a white cat perched on his head like snow on stone.
“You…” Words tangled. After a heartbeat, she caught them. “Hello. You saved me, didn’t you? I want to know… what happened?”
Caro looked around. She was still in the rose shop, still in her wheelchair. As if nothing had happened. Only the jade-carved girl was gone, making Caro wonder if that beauty had ever existed—and if the nightmare was only a dream.
White Cat sighed, whiskers drooping. It wanted to know how this human had resisted Saya’s Song, but her blank face said she knew nothing at all.
Augustine’s expression knotted. He didn’t know how to answer. The truth was cruel enough to cut. If he could, he’d have let it be a dream—wake, and everything back in place. He’d still be the fallen noble who loved Alice from the shadows. White Cat would still be sleeping in its eggshell.
“Look outside.” Augustine pointed, then saw her legs and gently pushed her wheelchair himself. He rolled her to the counter so she could see the street at a glance.
The road lay empty as usual, cold as blade steel. Not a soul for half a day. Caro glanced back at Augustine, baffled. Then a sound rose in the street, like insects, but louder than any summer chorus. Under Caro’s gaze, a giant beetle crawled into view—half a meter high, a meter long—trundling down the deserted lane like an armored boat.
“What… what kind of monster is that?” Her wheelchair shook with her voice.
“Monster… Yes. The town’s full of them now.” Augustine clenched his teeth and slammed a fist into the wall, anger ringing like a bell. White Cat spoke from his head. “Girl, you’re lucky—or unlucky. When we came in, we thought the whole town was lost. Didn’t expect someone untouched by the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts.”
A talking cat… Caro recognized the voice from her black prison. Color drained from her face.
“That’s… that’s impossible!”
Everyone in town turned into insects? Absurd. If thieves had killed them, she could still swallow it. But bugs—how could anyone accept that?
White Cat laid out the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts while the truth crawled outside the window. Whether Caro believed or not didn’t matter.
“Is there no way to turn them back? White Cat, you must have something!” She pinned every shred of hope to the creature. If it was the core that once sealed the Artifacts, it had to be formidable.
“Human girl, Cat Lord’s lived through epochs. But even I can’t fix the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts… However, do you know why you were spared? If we crack that, maybe we can counter them.”
White Cat’s eyes glittered like twin stars fixed on Caro.
“Why was I spared?” Caro drifted in fog. She told them everything, hoping the cat would find a thread to pull.
It proved empty. Augustine and White Cat found no useful stitch in her tale.
“Nothing else?” White Cat pressed, unwilling to give up. Caro thought and thought, then frowned at a wall clock laced with cracks like spiderwebs.
Seeing her change, both followed her gaze. A clock hung on the wall, fissures veining its face as if it could shatter any second. Augustine leaned in to touch it. Caro caught his sleeve and pulled him back.
“Mr. Jue gave me that for my birthday. How did it… turn into this?”
White Cat narrowed its eyes and padded a whisker with a soft paw. “If I’m right, your immunity ties to that clock. The one who gave it… remarkable.”
“Ah?” Augustine’s eyes lit. He grabbed White Cat down from his head. “Cat Lord, then Mr. Jue can turn everyone back? He can stand against the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts?”
Hope sparked in Augustine’s chest. So far, only White Cat had kept him from becoming a bug. If White Cat’s guess held, Mr. Jue was another who could defy the Artifacts.
“Could you push me to the hall? I want to see if Grandpa…” Caro clung to one last reed. If Jue’s clock kept her human, maybe her grandfather too.
Augustine and White Cat didn’t move. Seeing Augustine’s troubled face, Caro already knew.
“Sorry. We don’t know if that one was your grandpa. But we searched the town. You’re the only human left…” A month had bleached some youth from Augustine’s face, leaving weather and grit. “Do you know where Mr. Jue lives? Let’s find him. Maybe we can learn how to beat the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts.”
Caro opened her mouth, then sighed at Augustine’s fierce resolve. “Mr. Jue… seems to live in the City of the Dead in the west. I’m Caro. I can point the way, but I can’t travel well.”
“It’s fine. We go together. We’re all victims; we stick together. Staying here is dangerous for you.” Augustine ignored her attempt to refuse. Hands on the grips, he pushed the wheelchair. Two people and a cat set off for the City of the Dead.
