Whispering Verse

"Shadow, I need to take you to a town. We will take a steam train from Coldwater Harbor Station and arrive at the destination in three hours. If we can achieve our goal before evening, we will come back the same day. If not, we will probably have to stay in the countryside. It’s a night on the town.”

It seems that obtaining the [Shock] Spirit Rune requires contact with something immovable.

"Okay, Miss Aurora, when do we leave?"

asked Shade, who happened to be fine the last few weeks. Detective Sparrow's commission can be postponed a little longer, the spiritual runes are the most important.

"If it's convenient for you, we'll set off at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

Shade calculated the time:

"Okay. But where is the specific location? Do I need to prepare anything in advance?"

Shade asked again.

Miss Aurora pointed to the map of the Coldwater Harbor area on the wall of the study:

"Hekils Town, a rural town in Klein City east of Cold Water Port. Just prepare the casting materials in advance. You don't need anything else. You need to do me a favor."

Witches like to make conditions like this.

"Please say."

"I would like to invite you to a ceremony, right here at the manor, right now. All you have to do is stand behind me."

She said this, looking at Shade up and down, as if judging whether he was qualified to participate in the ceremony.

"Is there any danger?"

"There will definitely be no danger. How about I swear on the name of the Aurora family?"

The witch asked with a smile, and Shade felt relieved a little.

But after all, Miss Aurora is not Miss Carina, and Shade does not completely trust her:

"So what do we need to do?"

He only thought that Miss Aurora wanted to experiment with some rituals that required assistants.

"It's simple. Come with me and leave your lovely cat here. The servants will take care of it."

So Shade followed the lady out of the study, passed through the inner corridor on the third floor of the manor house, and came to the outermost corridor near the edge of the mansion.

On one side of the corridor are rooms with closed doors, and on the other side are windows that let in the warm breeze.

They did not continue to move. Miss Aurora hesitated for a moment before speaking softly to Shade:

"Follow me through the corridor in front of you."

There was nothing strange about the corridor in front of him. Shade had walked through it three or four times. He let the voice in his heart feel for a while, but found no trace of any elements.

"Can I just follow you?"

"Of course, this ceremony is very simple."

Miss Aurora nodded:

"But remember, you must follow me and don't get lost."

"get lost?"

Shade asked in surprise, but Miss Aurora had no intention of answering him.

"Are you ready then, Mr. Hamilton? Please follow me."

She coughed and cleared her throat:

"Be sure to follow me, I'm about to start."

The witch took a deep breath, and she actually started singing:

"The princess in the castle will not understand that freedom to walk in the world is what we pursue."

"When you meet a witch at a intersection full of lavender, where are you going to pick that handful of herbs?"

A sudden gust of wind blew from the window, causing the cyan hand-woven curtains on one side of the corridor to fly up and down. Miss Sylvie Avora, who was wearing a red dress, walked forward, crossed the floor, and entered the sunlight from the shadow area at the corner of the corridor. Shade immediately followed.

The sun shines from the window onto the scrubbed corridor floor, causing the clean floor to reflect the dazzling light. The shadow of the window frame divided the sunlight into irregular squares on the floor, and Shade and the witch walked among the flying curtains. The wind made the witch's skirt sway. Standing behind her, Shade could Smell the scent of the witch's hair.

It was a special perfume called "Witch's Smell", and only a very small number of people could detect this scent. But unlike the perfumes of Miss Carina and Miss Servit, Miss Aurora's perfume seems to be mixed with other spices.

"Hold the snow on the top of the snow mountain and watch the sun in the depths of the desert."

"If you could meet us, dear girl"

She continued to sing. This was not the common language of the Sixth Age, but Shade had heard the singing and remembered the lyrics. Under the giant tree in the Forest of Thousand Trees, Miss Feliana once sang this song very lonely. (Note)

The singing is soft and soothing, with a bit of melancholy. Among the flying curtains, Shade saw that the light in front of the corridor suddenly dimmed. As they moved forward, the surrounding light gradually disappeared, and even the appearance of the corridor changed:

"Please call our names softly and ask your doubts."

"Where the lilies bloom, or, to the west, where the sunflowers bloom."

This was not an illusion. At some point, they entered a long and narrow masonry corridor from the sun-drenched corridor of the mansion. There is no very clear boundary between the corridor and the corridor. In a certain area, the windows and bricks seem to be completely integrated together, and if you move forward, you will completely enter the corridor.

Shade wanted to turn his head and look behind him to confirm how the two were integrated, but he was worried about getting "lost", so he could only stare at the back of the witch in front of him and follow her forward step by step.

The ground was covered with white ash, and the two men left clear footprints. There were torches on the walls, illuminating the narrow and dilapidated masonry corridor, which looked like ancient ruins that had gone through a long period of time. But Shade felt that this place looked strangely familiar:

"It's not the temple of the fishmen. Although it has a similar style, it's obviously not. It's not damp here. It's not the corridor of the Dreadfort, where there are spaces for oil lamps on the walls. Here are torches."

And when his eyes crossed Miss Aurora's shoulder and looked forward, he finally understood the familiar feeling.

"Please put on your pretty dress and hold up your purple thyme."

"The people who love you and the ones you love are all here, in this sunny palace."

The singing has come to an end, and the corridor has also come to an end. Ahead, white mist floated out from the very familiar white mist door like silk. Miss Aurora stopped, sighed softly, and then turned to look at Shade.

The moment their eyes met, Shade was very sure that he saw a look of surprise in her eyes.

"Good, you're not lost."

The witch said, looking Shade up and down. Suddenly, she reached out her hand again and wanted to touch his face.

"Oh, ma'am, that's not polite."

Shade grabbed the witch's wrist. The latter was able to be grabbed by him, presumably voluntarily.

"Yeah, it's a little rude."

She suddenly came closer to Shade, and while the two pairs of eyes looked at each other, Shade could smell the strange perfume smell more clearly:

"I'm just glad you're not really lost."

As he spoke, he took his wrist out of Shade's hand, then faced the white mist door and made a gesture of invitation with a smile:

"Now, knight, come in with me."