Under Fors's lead, the group knocked and entered.
The room was already filling up. Some attendees had concealed their faces with hoods and masks; others sat openly, unconcerned. The air was thick with quiet murmuring.
Vincent's eyes found him almost instantly — a figure in black robes seated in a high-backed chair, hood drawn low, face swallowed by shadow. He watched each new arrival with the cold, unhurried stillness of a coiled viper.
Mr. A.
An early-recurring antagonist from the original story, known notoriously as a dangerously beautiful madman. In the name of spreading the glory of his deity, he'd carried out assassinations, acts of terror, and blood-curdling rituals.
And through all of it, his deity's reputation had somehow only gotten worse.
This was the Aurora Order — the organisation that proved, from top to bottom, that truly unhinged people came in all ranks.
Even as those thoughts ran through his mind, Vincent felt it — two gazes, slick as tentacles, sliding over him, pressing against his mask as if trying to see through to his face. In that same instant, the spirituality within him flared with Bernadette's deep, visceral revulsion — a feeling that screamed at him to lunge across the room and cave in Mr. A's skull then and there.
Steady. Steady. The two of us are in no condition to take him on right now. If you absolutely cannot hold back, just hand me full control of the body.
The surging spirituality settled.
Mr. A's gaze had already shifted to Audrey. Those cold eyes kindled with sudden, unmistakable interest.
Disgusting.
Audrey felt her skin crawl from across the room. Before she could react, Ms. Natasha stepped forward — deliberately positioning herself between them, breaking Mr. A's line of sight and lifting the suffocating weight of that stare from Audrey's shoulders.
Audrey shot a quiet, grateful look in her direction — and when Vincent didn't acknowledge it, she turned her attention to the chalkboard on the wall. It was covered in offerings and requests, and as she read through them, her mind kept repeating the same thought: this is all so cheap.
If it were at all possible, she'd want everything on that board.
She knew better than to be so obvious about it. But her eyes kept returning to one particular line — a listing for Emperor Roselle's diary — and a quiet resolve settled in her chest. Everything else I can let go. But the Emperor's diary. That, I must have.
Before she'd finished the thought, she noticed Xio looking at the same listing, and turned to her in mild surprise. "Miss Xio, are you interested in Emperor Roselle's notes as well?"
"No." Xio shook her head. "It's just that recently, a certain extravagant buyer put out a commission — willing to pay two or three times the going rate, buying up as many of Roselle's diary pages as they can find. I've been watching this listing ever since. Think about it: something listed at ten pounds, flipped for twenty or thirty. Not bad, right?"
"…Yes. Yes, quite."
Audrey smiled, a little stiffly, and glanced sidelong at Glaint. Unless she was very much mistaken, that extravagant buyer was Glaint — which meant the "extravagant buyer" Xio was so cheerfully describing… was herself.
Oh, the absolute nerve of it!!
Fors suddenly gripped Xio's arm, voice dropping. "Xio — someone's selling a Sheriff formula."
"I see it."
Xio nodded without expression. And what does that have to do with me? My money is gone.
At that moment, Mr. A surveyed the room and said in a flat voice, "Let us begin."
Outside the Church of Holy Wind, Storm Church, Backlund.
An Invisible Servant slipped out of thin air, gripping a small folded note. It shook its head, trembling as it stared up at the grand cathedral before it.
It was absolutely terrified.
It knew perfectly well that anyone who stepped casually out of that building could pinch it out of existence before it even made it back to the spirit realm.
But it had no choice. Such were the consequences of having an irresponsible master.
After a long moment of internal preparation, the Invisible Servant took a deep breath, steeled itself — and flung the note toward the cathedral with all its might.
Then watched it flutter gently to the ground.
Squeak?
It blinked. Darted through the spirit realm, snatched the note back up.
Scratched its head. Stared at the ground. Stared at the wall.
Squeak!
Its eyes lit up.
One minute later — a crash of shattering glass split the night silence.
The next instant, a storm erupted from within the cathedral. Thunder bellowed. A figure shot from the building like a cannonball, hovering in mid-air — an elderly man in a black robe embroidered with the storm sigil, a soft black cap on his head, silver eyes blazing with fury.
Cardinal of the Storm Church. "Singer of God." Ace Snake.
Lightning arced around him, radiating crushing pressure. "WHO DARES?!"
"Your Eminence!"
The Bishop of the Church of Holy Wind came sprinting out with a slip of paper in hand. "A tip-off has been received — the Aurora Order's divine envoy is secretly conducting a horrific sacrificial ritual!"
At almost the same moment, two other great cathedrals across Backlund suffered similar "attacks" — windows shattered by thrown stones, each bearing an anonymous letter denouncing the Aurora Order.
Within the hour, all three Churches had hauled their Extraordinary teams out of bed and mobilised a sweeping operation against the Aurora Order.
The one exception was the Storm Church's Cardinal. Crushing the Aurora Order was one thing — but the irreverent wretch who'd broken the Church's sacred windows was, if anything, the higher priority.
Mr. A's gathering.
After one masked figure had quietly offloaded six or seven Extraordinary materials at rock-bottom prices, Mr. A called a recess.
"Rest period. Mingle freely."
The man who'd listed Emperor Roselle's diary found himself drawn into conversation with Xio, who had smoothly manoeuvred into chatting him up — trying to tease out where on earth he'd managed to lay hands on those pages.
Audrey drifted toward Vincent instead. "Ms. Natasha — you looked rather uncomfortable during the trading just now."
"This room is a bit stifling."
Vincent waved it off. In truth, he'd been quietly seething, watching each successful transaction go by. If all of those deals had taken place at his own gathering instead — even if he couldn't digest the broker potion any faster — at the very least, they'd be feeding the Scales.
Such a waste.
"She's lying."
Audrey caught it immediately — that faint, practised air of saying something that wasn't quite what one meant. But they'd only just met, and pressing the point felt rude. So she simply smiled along. "You're right. And we're all wearing these thick cloaks on top of it, with masks and veils."
At that moment a server appeared, slipping quietly to Audrey's side and pressing a folded note into her hand. "From Mr. A," the server murmured, and melted back into the crowd.
Audrey unfolded it. On the paper, in neat handwriting: Interested in formulas for other Sequence 9 Pathways?
She smiled politely, wrote in the blank space beneath: I am only interested in the Spectator Pathway.
She handed it back.
Xio returned looking thoroughly deflated. "The man who has those diary pages only got his hands on them through sheer luck. And he's actually claiming he's cracked the secret of Roselle's cipher…"
Audrey smiled and said nothing. Only a being as magnificent as Mr. Fool could ever hope to unravel the Emperor's cipher. Anyone else making that claim was either a fraud, or a fool who'd talked himself into believing his own nonsense.
To be continued…
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