Hedi stepped into Father John’s room again, slipping past the door like a shadow crossing rice paper.

As the latch eased, her first glance snagged on Selina—facing the wall, head bowed, like a child put in time-out.

Her focus drifted backward like a reel rewinding. The Holy Maiden leaned at the bed’s edge, her face inked by canopy shadows, ripples spreading on dark water.

Hedi dragged a palm down her face and sighed, like wiping rain from a window. “With things this stiff, how didn’t you two start swinging?”

The Holy Maiden kept it simple, her voice cool as a bell in mist. Because of her station, she couldn’t use violence. Selina answered from Hedi’s side, like refusing to pile stones on a sinking boat—she didn’t want to add trouble for Hedi.

Hedi squinted. For a beat, no words rose, like a well gone dry. “Alright... fine...” Then a line surfaced, like a diver bursting up for air. “If you stop fighting, that’s the biggest help to me.”

“I can do more than fight!” Selina shot back, sparks on wet tinder.

“Sorry,” the Holy Maiden followed at once, her apology falling like ash. “About the Dark Realm, I’ve got no good advice.”

Hedi rubbed the bridge of her nose, weighing who to answer first like placing bowls on a scale.

They’d just warred with words; before the room’s storm cleared, the order mattered like the first domino. She looked to Selina’s neck and gently asked to borrow the crystal pendant. Then she turned to the Holy Maiden, voice warm as lamplight. “Everyone has their field. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

The Holy Maiden nodded, silent as snow.

Selina unhooked the pendant and stepped toward Hedi, one careful foot after another, like crossing a creek on slick stones.

Her cheeks burned rose-red, the heat of dispute not yet faded. The rest of her face showed a strange bluish cast—red maples woven with evergreen—an early autumn hillside painted wild.

“Thanks.” Hedi took the pendant, and asked without thinking, like tossing a pebble. “Why didn’t you return it?”

“Because it’s just decoration... so... easy to forget...” Selina muttered, words drooping like wet laundry.

“I see.”

“Exactly!”

Hedi compared the copied steps on the page and turned the crystal, like grinding a prayer wheel.

At first, the facets only flickered with pinpricks. Soon the points slid along the edges, merging into flowing ripples. She kept turning, until a crisp click sounded. Coolth seeped through crystal and skin, a winter thread weaving into her fingertips.

“No!” Selina snatched the pendant, blurting so fast her tongue tripped, like hooves on ice. “You... you want to enter the Dark Realm!”

“Who said that?” Hedi’s gaze stayed calm, a pond under rain.

“You activated the crystal!” Selina’s eyes widened, lanterns in a gust.

“So that’s it.” Hedi murmured, understanding opening like a fan. “The protection ritual Clara mentioned is what an Investigator activates inside the Dark Realm.”

“What ritual?”

Hedi told of her trip to the station, especially the talk with Lilliana, her words threading back like a path through pines. “Clara told me a ritual that cuts the risk of corruption and mutation. It needs the crystal Investigators wear. I thought it was new, but your reaction—”

“It’s the prep ritual for entering the Dark Realm!” Selina explained while backing away, like a crab pacing the tide line. “It lets an Investigator enter without getting affected.”

“Why’re you retreating that far?” Hedi tilted her head, a bird eyeing a skittish squirrel.

“You want to snatch it!” Selina’s grip tightened, knuckles pale as bone.

“What would I snatch it for?” Hedi spread her hands, empty as a monk’s bowl.

“To enter the Dark Realm! You want to solve it alone again!” Selina’s voice whipped like rain.

“Last time, Olivia was worried you’d enter the Dark Realm, so she let me go on purpose,” Hedi said, her tone flat as a blade. “This time we won’t have that luck—going alone is courting death.”

“You... can’t go into the Dark Realm...” Selina’s plea trembled like a moth at a candle.

“I won’t.” Hedi answered fast, a lid on boiling water.

“Promise!” Selina pressed, palm raised like a seal.

Hedi gave a small nod. She hesitated, then said, “I promise,” the words light as paper yet heavy as stone.

“You do want to go into the Dark Realm!” Selina kept backing up, like the tide pulled by a stubborn moon. “Every time you try to lie, you make that face!”

“No... that’s not... sigh...” Hedi’s breath left like wind from a flute.

“So you admit it?!” Selina pounced, claws out like a little cat.

Hedi tried to step closer. “I won’t go into the Dark Realm.” Her tone held, a rope pulled taut.

“Tell me why!” Selina darted to the other side of the room, fast as a startled hare. “Half a reason... I can’t relax...”

“Chief Mandele went to search the mountains. I’m worried he’ll meet the culprit who woke the Dark Realm, so I wanted your pendant.”

“That’s not about the Dark Realm.” Selina frowned, lines gathering like storm seas.

“Think. When the Dark Realm wakes, the corruption starts. If I march in raw, do you want an arm or a leg turning into octopus tentacles?” Hedi lifted a brow, humor quick as a spark.

Selina shook her head and offered, “The ritual holds five people. I’ll go with you,” her resolve settling like a stone.

“Take me instead.” The Holy Maiden, who’d only listened, entered now, her voice soft as drifting snow. “That tagalong can’t cast a single spell. She’ll only slow you down.”

“Bold words for a fake.” Selina shot back, thorns out like a hedgehog.

Hedi watched them tangle for the umpteenth time and rubbed her eyelid with her fingertip, like smoothing a crease in silk. “I’ll go alone. You two start fighting at the drop of a leaf. You’ll both be deadweight.”

“We won’t fight!” Selina promised at once, afraid Hedi would charge into the woods alone like at the station. “I want to go with you...” Her voice thinned, a thread in wind.

“The mountain terrain is a maze, and there’s a downpour,” Hedi said, opening her right palm like showing cards. “Give me the pendant. I’ll be right back.”

“No me, no pendant!” Selina stuck to it, a burr on cloth.

Hedi slipped out of the room in a sway of coat, quick as a swallow. Almost at once, exaggerated sobbing erupted inside, big waves on a small lake.

So she stopped at the door, showing half her small face, and called, playful and drawn-out like a flute trill, “Come on— let’s go—”

Selina’s clouds broke to sun. She sprinted to Hedi, almost shoulder to shoulder, like twin reeds in wind.

Hedi looked past Selina to the Holy Maiden, who was about to stand. “The Sacred Cathedral needs you. The two of us are enough.”

“Then... alright... I’ll wait at the Sacred Cathedral...” The Holy Maiden’s words hovered, a lantern in fog.

“Mm.” Hedi answered with a nod, a pebble in a pond.

“If there’s danger, I’ll bring the nuns to help.” The Holy Maiden’s hand lifted, a wing half-spread.

Hedi worried a dry edge of skin on her lip and shook her head, like a bell refusing the wind. “If we run into the Canary, it’ll be a brutal fight. Please hide in a room.”

“I’m the Holy Maiden of the Sacred Cathedral. I have a duty—” Her chin rose, a candle flame.

“I’m not saying this to the Holy Maiden,” Hedi smiled with a hint of longing, like seeing an old alley at dusk, “but to the one who grew up with me. The you from before.”

The Holy Maiden didn’t know how to answer. She touched her neck stiffly, and after a long beat let out a sound that wasn’t quite words, like dew gathering then slipping. “Ah... mm...”

“On the way to the station, I kept thinking how to tie you to someone. Your reaction now is exactly hers.”

“Melvina... Hedi...” The names left her lips like beads on a string.

Hearing that, Selina puffed her cheeks, a little storm. With a touch of petty revenge, she secretly wiped her tears and snot on the hem of Hedi’s coat, like a kitten on a curtain.

Hedi didn’t notice. She waved to the Holy Maiden and strode off, her back a line drawn through rain.