Klein Moretti slipped his hand quietly inside his coat, ready to draw his revolver at a moment's notice.
Several minutes later, he boarded the public tram with the other passengers, and the feeling of being watched gradually faded. All the same, as a precaution, he got off at a stop before his usual one and transferred to a different tram, approaching the company from a different direction.
He walked in the front door to find Leonard, just coming up from underground after finishing his shift, looking at him curiously. "It's past end of shift. What are you doing at the company?"
"Nothing much. I was passing by." Klein Moretti glanced toward the interior. "Is the Captain in?"
"When is he not? He practically lives here — it's not unusual to come in for a morning shift and find him still at his desk from the night before." Leonard gave an easy shrug. "Honestly, I've been telling him for ages to just put a cot in his office. He won't listen."
"That does seem like a sensible suggestion."
They chatted for a few minutes. Then Klein Moretti said, as though it had just come to him: "By the way — that Sealed Artefact 2-049 we need to locate Riel Biber, how much longer until it arrives?"
Leonard raised an eyebrow, amused. "Should be next week. Impatient?"
Klein Moretti put on a rueful expression. "I just want it resolved. The whole thing makes me feel unsettled."
That was the truth, too. Of the three people connected to the Antigonus family's notebook, two were dead — and "Klein Moretti" himself had technically died that night as well, only to be "revived" through the crossing-over. If there was someone pulling strings behind all of this, they wouldn't be inclined to leave him alone.
"Won't be long now."
Leonard lowered his voice: "And — you know about the directive that came down regarding the 'Wanderer,' I assume?"
Klein Moretti's hand moved almost involuntarily to his throat, where a faint scar still sat.
After the near-annihilation of the Tingen Night Watchmen squad, Captain Dunn had reported immediately to Backlund — but the response had been slow in coming.
"What does it say?"
"That it was an accident. That the Wanderer was most likely a high-Sequence extraordinary simply passing through Tingen, and that she clearly had no intention of making an enemy of the Church, otherwise we wouldn't have come out unscathed."
Klein Moretti said flatly: "I was not unscathed."
"Right — you were the only one who took any real damage, which is part of the point. Since she's already left, the directive says: forget about it. Barring something unexpected, there's essentially no chance we'll ever encounter her again."
Leonard shrugged again. "Of course, that's just what the telegram says. Personally, I suspect there'll be a follow-up investigation on the quiet."
"When there is," Klein Moretti said darkly, "I want my three pence back."
"…You've been going on about that for days."
"She also got Melissa hauled into the police station, and cost her two pounds, eight soli, and seven pence in damages!"
Just thinking about it made his mood drop several notches. What kind of high-Sequence extraordinary just goes around making life difficult for a pair of siblings?
Leonard pressed a hand to his forehead. "The Moretti family really is something special…"
After Leonard wandered off, Klein Moretti hesitated for a while, then used his yellow citrine to run a quick divination. When the crystal turned anticlockwise, he let out a slow breath.
Stop being paranoid. Melissa's been waiting long enough.
Half an hour later, Klein Moretti turned his key in the lock at 2 Daffodil Street. He pushed open the door and was met immediately by the smell of roasting meat. Benson was reading the paper on the sofa. Melissa, ladle in hand, looked up and gave him a quick once-over. "You're late tonight."
Klein Moretti hung up his coat and smiled. "A bit of overtime. Hardly unusual — Benson knows all about that."
Benson touched his receding hairline with one finger and said nothing.
Melissa leaned toward him with a sceptical look and sniffed. "I smell perfume." She took a half-step back and pointed the ladle at him. "Were you out on a date this afternoon?"
"It must have drifted onto me on the tram. You're reading into it."
Melissa looked faintly disappointed. "The two of you," she muttered. "You're both still single, and you don't seem the least bit bothered by it."
Klein Moretti and Benson exchanged a long-suffering look.
After dinner, Klein Moretti retired to his room early, intending to sit down and work through a summary of everything he'd been studying recently — the problems he'd run into, the progress he'd made.
He had barely written "Why is digesting a potion contingent on 'performing'?" in his notebook before his mind drifted back to that vague sense of being watched outside the Divination Club.
He retrieved his silver ceremonial dagger, set up a sealed spirituality barrier, and began the ritual chant, walking backwards. "…The Blessed Eternal God, the Blessed Eternal…"
On the third step, his spirituality gave a violent lurch — far stronger and more urgent than the brief flicker outside the club. His heart hammered.
There is someone in this room right now.
A wave of absolute terror swallowed Klein Moretti whole. His body went rigid. He forced himself, by sheer will, to stop, to slow his racing thoughts, to look calm — as though nothing had happened — and muttered, "I forgot to ask Benson about that thing," as he turned toward the door and started walking.
One step. Two. Three.
The spirituality fluctuation had already stopped — but he could still feel a pair of invisible eyes watching him, every hair on his body standing on end.
Click.
At last. His fingers found the locked door handle. He pressed it down with a soft snick, and pulled.
Instead of the hallway, he found himself looking at a forest path woven from green bean vines — each one seemingly alive, still growing, curling toward him like reaching fingers.
Bang.
Klein Moretti slammed the door shut and stumbled back. Then, slowly, he turned around, and forced his expression into something resembling a smile — one that looked considerably worse than crying. "Good evening, madam."
Leaning against his writing desk was a young woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties — a fashionable coat and short skirt, a leather hat, strikingly beautiful. Her expression was composed and faintly curious.
"What were you doing just now? And how did you detect me?"
Klein Moretti felt a flicker of the uncanny: for some reason, she seemed almost familiar. He dismissed the thought immediately. If he had ever met someone with a face and bearing like that, he would certainly have remembered.
Neither of them recognised the other: Bernadette had been returned to her body at the earliest opportunity that first night, and had never actually seen Klein Moretti's face. Klein Moretti, for his part, had no way of recognising Bernadette with her demeanour transformed beyond recognition.
"I…"
He swallowed. "I wasn't doing anything."
The moment the words were out of his mouth, something stretched into his field of vision — a thin, elongated growth. Klein Moretti stared at it for a few dull seconds before registering that it was his own nose. He reached up to touch it, and it was real. Why is my nose getting longer?!
Bernadette said calmly: "Liars' noses grow."
To be continued…
Guys, donate me your powerstones please~