For now, the room can rest; the dust can sleep a little, and I’ll carry the laundry down to the laundry room later.

The Holy Maiden lifted her gaze to the vault of the sky, a soft trill bubbling like a stream stirred by a quick tongue. She gathered her hair as if smoothing silk in a breeze, brushing it up so her ears and the pale nape lay bare like moonlit porcelain. Her ears looked newly made, a delicate rose wash brushed on with a soft bristle. She claimed it was to better hear the world, yet the shape sang of pure aesthetics, carved for beauty like a petal.

“The room looks clean, no need to tidy,” Hedi said, her voice steady, like a reed in a calm pond. “When will you wash the clothes?”

“In a little while,” the Holy Maiden replied, her tone drifting like slow cloud. “Where is the gray-haired troublemaker?”

“The gray-haired one… cough—she’s in solitary,” Hedi answered, a dry wind in the words.

“This disaster fell on the people of Naghtown like winter hail,” the Holy Maiden murmured, her eyes a dim shore. “But don’t be too harsh on her.”

“Just strung her up and beat her,” Hedi said, the syllables like stones. “Wrapped her in straw and buried her alive.”

The Holy Maiden spun like a startled bird; her eyes widened, flashing surprise like lightning behind glass. She dipped her face, fingers fussing at her temple like anxious sparrows, then turned away and fixed on the low-hanging clouds, as if a cool sky could soothe a boiling heart.

“The person speaking to me just now… was you?” Her lips parted, voice smooth yet wavelike, each word a glimmer breaking through, surprise ringing clear.

“On the way here, I talked with the nuns,” Hedi said, her tone a quiet river. “After Priest John passed, you stayed at the Sacred Cathedral and took my name. So I guessed we must know each other, even if my mind holds no memory of a white-haired woman.”

Hedi watched her, and her gaze softened. The Holy Maiden’s neck was slender, like a sunlit sapling swaying in a mild wind. Her white hair fluttered like leaves at the crown. Her pale skin gleamed like fireflies dragging threads of light—bright, pure, and alive.

“Only you have that strange color,” the Holy Maiden said, staring out the window like a stone statue. “A head of gray-white.”

“So you really are my peer from the Sacred Cathedral,” Hedi said, her voice like dusk settling. “You carry my name here and serve as the Holy Maiden.”

“Priest John poured out so many words to me as he faded, a stream of instructions all meant for you—”

Hedi cut in, a cool blade through fog. “He mistook you for me. You don’t have to guard this place like a lighthouse forever.”

“Precisely because everyone left, I have to stay,” the Holy Maiden replied, her tone like a candle that refuses to die. “From you at the beginning, to Sister Bertha at the end… But why have you come back?”

“Because of an urgent letter,” Hedi said, the word like a stamped seal.

“Heh,” the Holy Maiden breathed, laughter thin as frost. “You deliberately arrived a week late, then used magic in Naghtown without a care—showing off your strength as a Professor of Magic like thunder on a clear day. Famous people are astounding; unlike me—once I leave Naghtown, I’m just an ordinary white-haired woman, a shadow no one knows is the Holy Maiden.”

“I can’t afford a spectacle,” Hedi said, calm as stone in rain. “Two Hedi Melvina—one of us will have to show her true face.”

“You’re mocking me as a fake?” The Holy Maiden turned to face Hedi, the first joy drained like color in winter, a stern anger rising like iron. “You’re troubled just because a small town harbors two people with the same name?”

Hedi shook her head, regret heavy as a wet cloak. “Because of the Priest’s dying words, you gave yourself up like a candle burned to the end.”

“You were the one glued to his heels,” the Holy Maiden shot back, her tone a snapping twig.

“But I left the town and live in the city,” Hedi said, a skyline in her voice.

“So sixteen years of care turn to mud in your eyes,” the Holy Maiden cried, fury spitting like sparks.

“Because of doctrine—” Hedi began, a steady drum.

The Holy Maiden stiffened like struck wire; a twitch ran across her face, and a vein rose at her narrow temple like a ridge. She pinned Hedi with a cold smile, each word clicking out like ice pebbles: “You have no right to talk doctrine.”

“The doctrine clearly states,” Hedi repeated, her tone flat as slate, “a sinner must not approach a soul about to enter Heaven.”

“What sin marks you?” the Holy Maiden pressed, her voice a gust. “You were never even put in solitary.”

“Did Sister Bertha not tell you?” Hedi asked, her eyes a guarded lake.

“She said nothing,” the Holy Maiden murmured, a leaf falling. “Even when I used your name to become the Holy Maiden, she didn’t oppose.”

“She probably thought I’d never come back,” Hedi said, her words like soil over stone, “and meant to carry it into the grave.”

“Then why did you come back?” the Holy Maiden asked, her voice a tight string.

Hedi let out a slow breath, like mist from a winter mouth, and her eyes drifted to the group photo hanging on the wall. It was summer caught in paper—the sleeves were short, the ground stamped with dark tree shadows like ink spills. The Priest sat at the front of the three-step terrace, robed in clean black, facing the lens with a small, warm smile. Hedi stood at the far right of the frame, face still, body stiff like a bound reed. The background was a huge locust tree, though only the rough trunk made it into the shot; leaves and branches stood just beyond the edge, a green sea cut away.

“A heat-of-the-moment result,” Hedi murmured, her tone a wilted petal. “I didn’t want to come back.”

“For someone like you, nobles are daily guests,” the Holy Maiden said, envy thin as smoke. “An upper-class life that dazzles like chandelier light.”

“It’s tiring,” Hedi answered, a hollow room in her voice. “I end up staring at piles of money to console myself like a cold fire.”

The Holy Maiden paused with an angry huff, like a kettle about to boil. “Then go back!”

“Why so heated? You mocked me first,” Hedi said, her tone a quiet ember.

“I shouldn’t have written that letter,” the Holy Maiden snapped, like rain on tin. “I thought you had a conscience, yet you arrived a week late—”

“At that time,” Hedi said, tapping her face, her voice flat as chalk, “I got held up by other matters.”

“If not held up, would you have come back?” the Holy Maiden asked, hope fraying like string.

“I would’ve ignored it,” Hedi said, her words a closed door. “You wrote to scold me like crows in a field.”

“It was your fault!” the Holy Maiden cried, the sound a lash.

“At its core,” Hedi replied, steady as a plumb line, “what I did was relentless pursuit of magic. It just didn’t fit the Sacred Cathedral’s strict dogma.”

“We’re not talking about the same ‘fault,’” the Holy Maiden said, a split in the wood.

“Dark Magic,” Hedi answered, the phrase a shadow.

“There are some Dark Magic books in the Sacred Cathedral…” the Holy Maiden whispered, disbelief flickering like candlelight. “Don’t tell me… you read them…”

“Bolder than that,” Hedi said, her voice a night wind.

“Did the Priest know?!” the Holy Maiden demanded, words sharp as sleet.

“Ask me all you want,” Hedi replied, a hand to the latch.

“The Priest wasn’t that kind,” the Holy Maiden shot back, conviction ringing like bell metal. “He obeyed doctrine more than anyone! You’re just finding an excuse to leave!”

“Maybe,” Hedi said, a shrug like falling ash.

“You learned Dark Magic later and stitched it to this to make it one story!” the Holy Maiden cried, her anger like a storm squall.

“Believe it or not,” Hedi said, her voice a sealed envelope, “that’s your choice.”

“What do you expect me to believe?” the Holy Maiden asked, grief rising like floodwater. “A girl who lived in the Sacred Cathedral for sixteen years, bearing the Priest’s hopes, studied Dark Magic that runs against the doctrine! That would drag the Priest into Hell like a weight!”

Hedi fell silent; the winter wind battered the window frame like waves against a pier. A dull heaviness welled up inside her, unbidden as fog, and nausea pricked at her throat like nettles. “I still don’t know who you are,” she said at last, her voice a tired sleeper. “And I don’t want to know. The past stands as it is. When Naghtown’s rail line runs again, I’ll leave.”

“Even with the letter, you shouldn’t have come back,” the Holy Maiden said, the words cold as rain.

“Seems like both of us,” Hedi murmured, the line a drifting leaf, “are easily swayed by our own storms.”