The Holy Maiden watched the police pull away, then lifted her eyes to a sky scarred by contrails that refused to fade—clumps like teased cotton, cutting a clean seam against drifting clouds, oil and water holding to separate, unmixed bands.
In that pause, recent strangeness surfaced—the blur of foreboding spread through her mind like mist unrolling over still water.
Whispers of the faithful rustled like moth-wings—maybe they were weighing her ties with Melvina, maybe guessing at officers hunting a missing face.
Her nerves quivered like a plucked string; part of it came from a routine snapped in two, part from squads of police threading through Naghtown like ants across dry earth.
To be frank, only I stayed in the dark, curled in the small world of the Sacred Cathedral, blind to what changed outside—until the air itself pressed close like a tide I couldn’t ignore.
After a long bout of self-scrutiny, the Holy Maiden spread her fingers and slapped her cheeks, quick and neurotic, then let a lone sentence fall like a pebble in a well: “Missing for six days, and I didn’t react at all.”
“Six days?”
“What are you—?!” Her face flushed; her left hand trembled as she rubbed her reddened cheek. “Why aren’t you in the confinement room?”
Hedi’s mouth skewed with a strange little twist. “Because I can move freely.”
“You can’t.”
“Wasn’t that your rule?”
The Holy Maiden nodded, slow and dulled, a furrow gathering between her brows around that phrase, “free movement,” like frost around a leaf-vein. She weighed each word as if dropping iron weights to dent the floor. “Free movement isn’t a reason to drift toward the gate. Wanting to go out is a profanation of order and rule.”
“I only saw you slap yourself. Is that worth getting angry over?”
“It’s not about that.”
Hedi showed a faint smile. She combed the wind-tossed strands from her face and cut the Holy Maiden a sidelong glance, cool as a blade’s shadow.
“I’m serious. Even if there’s precedent for leaving, once you choose to come back, you follow the rules.” The Holy Maiden worked her fingertips over her eyes, like smoothing creased paper. “Don’t you think you’re crossing the line?”
“If you say so, then it is—so long as you aren’t covering for yourself, saying it on purpose is fine.”
“We can’t… keep doing this…”
“Okay—then why hit yourself?”
“A little drowsy. I wanted to wake up.”
“But you said, missing six days.”
The Holy Maiden fell silent, listening to the wind pat the branches like soft hands.
“Missing six days, and no response,” Hedi echoed, airy as mist. “You think it’s your fault? A few slaps so you won’t repeat it?”
“Go keep your companion company, she—”
Hedi lifted a thumb and pointed lightly aside, the gesture like a sparrow’s hop. The Holy Maiden followed it with her gaze.
Selina crouched behind a low tree, palms on rough bark, her torso bowed, wary and quick as a small beast watching a clearing. Her technique was terrible; one glance around was enough to catch her arrow-straight hideaway.
“What are you two up to now?”
“Gave her a thrashing, now she’s sulking,” Hedi said, spreading her arms in a helpless arc. “Yet she won’t let me leave her sight, so she tails me in a sneaky line like a shadow playing spy.”
“Is that endearing, or infuriating?”
“Half and half.”
“It should be infuriating. I remember long stares make you anxious.”
Hedi drew the cold air into her lungs like river-water and let it out in one breath. “Only Selina doesn’t set it off.”
“You’ve changed a lot.”
“If you want to say who I am, just say it. Don’t keep shepherding me back to old roads. You feel like a child playing hide-and-seek, wedged in a wardrobe and aching to be found—then when a friend passes by, you can’t help calling out. Wanting to be found, and afraid of it, two hearts tugging one rope.”
“I just… feel I’m different…”
“From the moment you used my name.”
“I had a dream I still see clearly. A cargo ship sat motionless on the sea, new at a glance, but when I climbed the ladder, the deck paint had rusted under salt winds; inside the cabin, dense white shells clung everywhere, like scabs after a sick skin had healed.”
“The ship is the Sacred Cathedral? You mean people left, and this place changed shape?”
“A resident of Naghtown has been missing for six days.” The Holy Maiden drove the talk back like steering a boat to the channel. “In that time, I felt the air go strange around me, yet stayed uncurious, like a shut window.”
Hedi disliked the sudden turn, but silence served as her reply, thin as paper.
The Holy Maiden went on. “From the police description, it likely started after you kicked up that magic.”
“I haven’t been here that long. Where do you get six days?”
“Three days and three nights. Add them up and that’s six days.”
Hedi stood mute, a long moment pooled like still sand.
Silence dried out like a desert wind and swallowed the line; only a bitter thread clung to her tongue. “Twelve hours times two times three equals a hundred forty-four hours?”
“That’s not the math. We only live twelve hours. When the sun sets, that’s one day. Then the night is twelve hours, and that makes two—”
“Great explanation,” Hedi cut in with a teasing bite. “Every night’s sleep wastes a day.”
“But you have to sleep. Staying up hurts your body.”
“Are you serious?”
“What’s wrong?”
Hedi watched the frank confusion on the Holy Maiden’s face—had she always lived by that clock? No one corrected her? Or did she only bare it to me?
Make this a creed and people will laugh; call it out here and I’ll shame her. Better to pivot…
“Let’s go in,” Hedi said, easy as a cat stretching. “Stand at the door long enough, and people think I’m about to bolt.” She beckoned the Holy Maiden and strode, deliberately, toward the little stand of trees where Selina hid. “I don’t mean you. Don’t take it to heart.”
The Holy Maiden nodded, sunk in the bog of worry the missing stirred up; the buried tone in Hedi’s words slipped past like a fish.
Hedi flicked a look at Selina, gauging how far a voice would carry, then asked, “Is this what gnaws at you?”
“Think about it. That woman vanished six days, and I—”
“Who?” Selina popped her head out, curious as a squirrel. “Who are you talking about? Is it tied to the police from before?”
Cut off mid-word, the Holy Maiden’s helplessness rose like a sigh, but she kept patient. “A townsperson went missing. The police have searched six days.”
“Before the Professor and I reached Naghtown?”
“Maybe after the magic broke out.”
Selina sifted her memories, then said bluntly, “It’s only been three days here.”
“Where are three days?” Hedi echoed, parrot-bright. “Daytime is twelve hours; after sunset, that’s one day. Add the twelve hours of night, that’s two days. Use that logic—six days.”
“You’re so… silly…”
“Watch your mouth!”
“It’s obviously three days. Who counts twelve hours as a day?”
Hedi shot a glance at the Holy Maiden’s awkward face, then kept sparring with Selina. “Split day and night into two periods, add them up, and there’s two days.”
“You mean the twelve-hour dial? That’s not how you count. Twelve hours runs from midnight to noon, then noon to midnight. The clock face is twelve to keep the angles readable. If it spun twenty-four, the hour hand’s step would be too small. Noon after is written 1, 2, 3; twenty-four-hour tracks are 13, 14, 15. If you don’t believe me, check your pocket watch.”
“Thirteen, so what?” Hedi snapped her watch shut with a click. “Night means we’ve passed a day.”
“You don’t feel the time while asleep, but in truth, day plus night makes one whole day.”
“Nonsense!”
Selina pushed out her lips, prickly as a hedgehog. “You’re an Academy Professor, and even I know this…”
“Not worth my breath.” Hedi turned back to the Holy Maiden, picking up the thread like a dropped needle.
The Holy Maiden stayed quiet a long beat, then pressed out a line. “Think about it. The woman disappeared for three days; everyone talked; and I felt no urge to learn more—only a wrongness in the air.”
“Weren’t you saying six days?” Selina asked, and her cheek took a light tap before she could duck. She bit Hedi’s finger on reflex and mumbled through a hot mouthful, “You! You hit me again!”
“Cute… ow! Let go! Let go! That hurts!”
