Within the Sacred Cathedral, only Priest John’s room was fit for private talk. Not because of thick stone or wired alarms. It was the hush that clung to a dead priest’s space, like dust on old icons.
Even nuns busy with church chores would skirt this door like sparrows avoiding a grave. They stepped in only to place a necessary call, a handful in a year.
Hedi kept to the Holy Maiden’s stride and moved toward the Priest’s room. Thunder rolled, strobing their shadows across the white walls like ink blots. Wind and rain braided into a noisy score; crackles rang like pebbles dropped into a well, then thudded like a weight hitting earth.
“Do you still remember Cheryl?” The Holy Maiden kept her eyes ahead, steady as an arrow loosed. “I remember you two as close friends.”
Her chest tightened first, her feet kept moving after. “Only a few things.”
“Heh. You really were close friends?”
“Close friends.”
“Do you say that to strangers too?”
Hedi thought hard, her mind fogging like wet glass. “What’s a stranger?”
“Later you’ll talk to Chief Mandele. If he asks about Cheryl, will you say you were friends, or say she only thought so?”
“Why ask me that?” Hedi squinted, sensing weight behind the words like a stone under silk, yet missing the exact point. “Have I ever denied being close to Cheryl?”
The Holy Maiden paused, silence settling like snow. “That would track.”
“Stop riddling me. What are you trying to say?”
“People often hurt others deeply at moments they never planned, like brushing dust off a sleeve. Afterward, the giver forgets, because to them it was ordinary.”
Hedi felt bafflement rise, with a prickle of annoyance like thorns under skin. “So you pin a made‑up thing on me, then tell me I forgot?”
“Beige sunglasses,” the Holy Maiden prompted, soft as shade. “Sunglasses to fend off the harsh sun.”
“I never wear shades.”
“Seems you truly forgot.”
“No—” Hedi flicked a strand of hair, irritation sparking like static. “My pupils are thin. With shades, the world turns to ink.”
“I never said you wore them.”
“Give me one more hint?”
The Holy Maiden bit her lip, holding a secret like a seed, and pushed open Priest John’s door.
Mandele stood near the window, still as a mime shaping a role. Only the cigarette at his lip flared off and on, a red ember like a tiny lighthouse.
“Little Gray’s here,” the Holy Maiden said.
“I still don’t get it,” Mandele said as he crushed the butt, voice dry as old paper. “How do women make showers take twice as long?”
“I was about to ask who Mandele was—” Hedi slid her fingers into her hair like combing seaweed. “Turns out it’s you.”
“Rex Mandele.” He tasted the name like iron. “I thought after that mess we wouldn’t cross paths. And yet… and yet…”
“Enough.” Hedi cut in, sharp as a snapped twig. “What do you want to ask?”
Mandele lifted his eyes and met the Holy Maiden’s gaze, a brief clash like flint. She tipped her chin, then led Selina away; Selina balked at first, then her protests were dragged thin by force, vanishing down the hall like rainwater in a gutter. The room settled, a still pond, until Mandele broke it. “I want to know what happened before you blacked out.”
“A walk.”
“A walk at dawn?”
“My head felt off.” Memory tugged at her, threads wet and slippery. “I wandered toward the cemetery, like a leaf pulled by a current. I saw gas floating in the air, pale veils drifting. I followed it into the woods around the Cathedral. There, I found a woman crouched and busy as an ant. I tried to get closer. Something yanked me, like a hook from the dark, and then nothing.”
“Canary.”
“A bird?”
Mandele shook his head, a slow pendulum. “Codename for the crouching woman. The other one, you’ve seen.”
“The man who eats cats?”
“From the scuffs and bruises on site,” Mandele said, fishing out another cigarette like a habit reefed tight, “he’s the one who knocked you out.”
“No smoking in the Cathedral, and especially not in the Priest’s room.” Her voice cooled like rain on stone.
“The Holy Maiden didn’t complain. Why jump in?”
Hedi folded her hands behind her back, thoughts turning like mill wheels. “What happened between you two?”
“What?”
“You didn’t treat the Holy Maiden like that at first.”
The flame licked his cigarette, then died as if it met an invisible rain. A ribbon of bluish smoke climbed, thin as a snake.
“Allow me to stress it again,” Hedi opened her fingers, calm like a fan spreading. “No smoking in the Cathedral.”
“Don’t use magic to threaten a public officer!”
“If you want more clues from me—”
Mandele set the pack on the window ledge and let the storm soak it, mercyless as a tide.
“Good.” Hedi nodded, approval landing like a stamp. “If you don’t want to explain you and the Holy Maiden, then keep asking me.”
“I don’t have many questions. But if the Dark Realm really wakes, you need to build a defense against Dark Realm Erosion.”
“What kind of defense?”
“I called the Institute’s dean. She says the Erosion is a special energy wave. Aside from their instruments, magic can resist it.”
Hedi’s mind worked while her eyes scanned the room’s layout, thoughts fanning like paper slips. “We could use anti‑magic stone. In Shattered City, their Dark Realm—”
“Not that expensive!”
“Without it, there’s no way.”
“Isn’t this your field? Professor Melvina?”
“The heart of magical defense lies in parsing the mana vibrations that attack spells produce, wave for wave.”
“Then parse!” Mandele crossed his arms and leaned on the frame, a dock post in storm. “Isn’t that Professor of Magic work?”
“You think it’s one plus one equals two?” Hedi’s words tapped like rain. “Magic stacks—one spell can carry multiple complex frequencies. Let alone the Dark Realm. The Institute uses devices, not spells, for a reason. Mechanical real‑time parsing outruns human thought like gears outrun hands, and it grabs the first move inside wide‑area corrosion.”
Mandele held silence, then sighed, the sound flat as a spent bell. “I can borrow some equipment.”
“Anything that computes in real time will be room‑sized.”
“If they can’t move it, how do they know the Dark Realm changed frequency?”
“Because frequency has periodicity, like tides.”
“So we need to keep calling to confirm the cycle?”
Hedi nodded, quiet as a lantern.
“Damn it. Do Investigators always juggle this much hassle?” Mandele sighed again, a second wave. “I’ll set a formation to relay info fast. Once we have the first frequency, you handle defense.”
“My mana can’t shield all of Naghtown.”
“Not alone. Some nuns can cast.”
“The trouble is—our mana must sync and track the Dark Realm’s shifting frequency. A hair’s error collapses it, like a cracked drumskin. Even twins can’t match that.”
“Fight to the death or turn into monsters. Pick one.”
Hedi rubbed her nose and muttered an “ow,” the sound small as a pebble.
“Think on it first. I’m leading a sweep through the woods.”
“What now?”
“We haven’t caught the Canary. If we want to open the Dark Realm, we have to go there.” Mandele rose with a wry smile, then glanced at Hedi. “Before I go, one more question.”
“Go on.”
“Two Melvinas—who’s real? I heard your teammate call the Holy Maiden… a fake.”
