It would be strange if anyone found out about “Acacius Duval” asking for directions to Veratrum Row, so I asked for directions using Chen Xiarui’s face. Then, after ducking into a public restroom to return to my base form as Acacius Duval, I hopped onto the nearest trolley line.

Veratrum Row turned out to be a rich neighborhood to the north of Nithemoore Academy’s campus, with its mansions lined up along a road that cut across the side of a hill. The buildings were surrounded by neatly curated lawns and gardens, each guarded by beautifully designed fences and the occasional trimmed hedge. The windows looked out down the hill towards the campus and the river; they probably had beautiful views.

How many workers did they need to keep the neighborhood so well-maintained? Rich people like this, they definitely had a separate service entrance for workers so they would stay out of sight, didn’t they?

The wrought-iron gates to 105 Veratrum Row were locked, so I circled the property until I found a service entrance near the back. A much more inconspicuous place to be doing my misdeeds. Using [Caller], I cut a stiff thin branch from the flowering vines growing over the side of the wall, and then I wiggled it around in the lock along with [Caller] until I got in.

Heading to the entrance of the house, I got a better look at the subtle rose and thorn motifs carved into the window frames and roof siding. The golden knocker on the hardwood door was shaped like a lion’s head.

When I used the lion knocker, sadly, no one answered.

I didn’t particularly feel like waiting on the doorstep or going back yet, though, so I picked the front lock too and let myself in. Anyways, Acacius had lived here before, so what was wrong with me being here?

As the door swung open, I let out an impressed whistle.

Cherry hardwood floors, thick rugs, scenic paintings, and floor-to-ceiling windows that let in light from the backyard garden. An elegantly carved stair banister that must have led up to Acacius’ previous living quarters and Cynara’s current one. How many rooms were up there, actually?

I suppressed the urge to snoop through Cynara’s personal belongings and went to look at the kitchen instead. Granite counters, polished cabinets, fine china in the display cabinets… A fridge stuffed with paper boxes of cooked food, but stocked with very few base ingredients. I guess Cynara didn’t cook much.

I could have guessed that from the time she tried making me soup, actually. If she’d wanted to do something for me, shouldn’t she just have bought something and brought it over? Would’ve saved us both some trouble.

With so much food in front of me, I gave into temptation and took out one of the boxed meals to sneak a bite. Not one of the curries that would need to be reheated — just one with slices of some kind of savory pie stuffed with eggs and vegetables. Call it quality inspection on Cynara’s behalf.

Yeah, it tasted good.

The lock to the front door clicked, and there was a loud banging against the wall. Rapid footsteps came running down the hall.

Cynara, out of breath and clothes ruffled, rounded the corner and appeared at the kitchen entrance.

No point in hiding what had already been discovered, right? I licked the crumbs off my fingers before closing the box.

“Nice stock.”

“What are you doing here?!” Cynara burst out. “How did you get in? The locks have all been changed!”

She wanted to keep Acacius out that badly? Ouch.

“I had something to say to you. Are you busy?”

“What do you think? With all the mess you’ve made, of course I am!”

And I was about to give her a bigger mess. “Then I guess I should reward you with an opportunity.”

I leaned against the granite counter, tilting my head to gaze down at her on the other side. Maybe she’d grow taller in a couple years.

“So, about you and Linden’s… blood problem.”

Cynara stiffened and went silent like her lips had been sewn together.

Linden’s World Proof, [Regretful Devourer of What He Loves], gave power boosts when the user consumed what was important to them. If that was it, though, Cynara wouldn’t need to continuously give him her blood. From what I’d pieced together while eavesdropping outside Linden’s hospital room, he had some shitty title that had her donating blood to keep him alive?

I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but our relationship didn’t seem good enough to ask.

So I just said, “Want to see the Saintess about it?”

Cynara sputtered like I’d short-circuited her. “The Saintess?”

I nodded. “So?”

“Do you think anyone can waltz in to see her as they please? The Saintess! Stop making fun of me.”

“It’s up to you whether you believe me or not.”

Cynara took a deep breath, as if she wanted to start yelling at me, but she clamped down on it at the last moment, turning my words over in her head.

“You wouldn’t offer something like this for no reason. What do you want?”

Acacius’ reputation was really useful sometimes.

“The Saintess and I have… a little agreement,” I said. “So if you want her healing, help me do a favor for her. You can ask her for the details first before agreeing to anything.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then we can forget about this conversation.”

Cynara narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you. What are you getting out of this?”

I offered her a faint smirk but didn’t say anything. Let Cynara come to conclusions on her own.

“At least tell me how to get in contact with the Saintess,” she snapped. “Or should I go to the Shrine and yell for her from the top of the dome?”

“No need for that,” I said, amused. “When you go to the Shrine, just look for Veric and tell her that I sent you. Ah… Her full name is Verica.”

“As in the prospective Saintess?”

“She’s my classmate.”

Even after making allowances for my cultural disconnect from Iyiria, I couldn’t understand why she sounded so incredulous. Anyone could go to the Shrine and meet one of the priestesses normally, right? Of course Veric and Roxana would be reachable there. And the Saintess was basically running a public religious service and health organization, so I bet people saw her all the time. It couldn’t be that shocking to tell her to look for them.

Cynara closed her eyes like she was praying for patience.

“Get out of my house, Acacius.”

“Didn’t I live here before, too?”

“Get out!”

Well, I’d already delivered my message, so it was fine.

“Alright. No need to tell me what you decide, but make the decision soon.”

I was nearly at the door before Cynara’s voice, barely audible, made it to my ears again.

“Acacius. How many people is the Saintess willing to see?”

Hmm?

I looked back, but Cynara’s head was lowered, and her bangs hid the expression on her face.

I thought that Linden was the sick one here. Who else did Cynara want help for?

Herself?

I hoped not.

Hey, Cynara… No matter what, Acacius had wanted you to live a happier life, you know?

“She promised to see one person for this favor,” I said. “But if you play your cards right, there’s always a chance you can get a little something more.”

The opportunity would have to be seized by Cynara on her own.

I closed the door gently behind me as I left.

Back at my dorm, Zaire visited again after dinner. He handed me a small, gift-wrapped box tied with a green ribbon before comfortably seating himself by the kitchen table, watching me with anticipation. I ran my hand along the paper and felt the ribbon’s silky texture under my hands.

“…You went the extra mile.”

“It’s your first seam, after all. I can’t let you regret it.”

I kept my eyes on the box so I wouldn’t have to look at him. It was no good. If I felt like this every time I faced Zaire from here on forward, how could I go on?

I had to wonder if Acacius had been moved by Zaire’s sincerity, but… Looking at his titles, I thought maybe not.

Title: [Detached Performer on the Record’s Stage]

Symbol: Silhouette emerging from stage curtains

Description: All the world is a stage, and you are merely an actor salvaging a broken play. So go ahead: laugh, cry, struggle, and rail against the world. Immerse yourself into the world that you love. But no matter what your seven emotions and six desires tell you, how could the affairs of that play have anything to do with you?

Title Skill: When activated, changes the nature of the title holder’s emotions towards their life from “a world that is real” to “a storyline that is being played through.”

Even if Zaire meant something to Acacius, if he kept this title active, how close could Zaire have really gotten to him?

I didn’t know what kind of person Acacius had been to get this title, and I didn’t want to become like him by becoming someone who relied on it, either. Not to mention, if I just treated the world around me like a story, I felt like it would dull the survival instincts that I’d been relying on so heavily…

When faced with something painful, I couldn’t say the temptation to try this title wasn’t there. But still.

There were things you couldn’t let go of, no matter how painful it might be.

I must have been silent for too long, because Zaire said softly, “You don’t have to use a seam if you don’t want to.”

He reached out, but I pulled the box away. “You think it’s so easy to take back what you give?”

Whatever. I shouldn’t overthink things, or I’d end up like my family, always pondering about how to be a good person when the world was already ruined. Okay, Eunseok, if the title feels bad, don’t use it, and if you want to treat Zaire well, just do it! What was all this pussy-footing around for?

“And here I was thinking you’d gotten cold feet,” Zaire teased. “Don’t worry. I can always give that seam a good home if you won’t.”

“Keep talking nonsense and see what I do.”

I untied the ribbon and carefully pulled the wrapping paper apart without ripping it. Then I opened the lid of the thin cardboard box within and looked inside.

Laid on a soft piece of white cloth was a flat, rectangular block with a glossy screen, protected by a light green case. It was more solid than the holographic seams I’d seen before, and more delicate than the brick-like phones that the militias used in my past life. It went without saying that slum dwellers like me didn’t get phones of our own.

I reached into touch the seam, but my hand froze about an inch away from the screen.

It was like every muscle in my body had locked down. My heart pounded, my hair stood on end. The dread of an unseen catastrophe cast its shadow over me.

Don’t use it.

Zaire reached past me to touch the screen, and it lit up with a clock overlaying a picture of a crocodile.

“It’s a touch-screen,” he said proudly. “It breaks the design philosophy of the Broken Kaleidoscope’s guidelines for communication technology, but… who cares! It’s cute, it’s easy to hold and hide, and unlike holoseams, it can be used discreetly. And watch this.”

He flipped the seam around, showing me the beetle wing pattern etched into the case. With a light stroke of his fingers, six small legs emerged from the sides, the wings lifted and unfolded, and the seam flew away from his hands to land on the wall next to us. It very slowly crawled towards the ceiling corner.

“Teacher modified it with a semiotic symbiote so that you can control what signals come in and out. It can interface with all different kinds of protocols. I named it Clover. Do you like it?”

That was crazy. Was it alive? “How do I call it back?”

Zaire said, “Here, Clover!” and stretched out his arm.

The seam flew into his waiting hands.

I wasn’t sure how convenient a semi-autonomous phone was, but I had to admit, it was pretty damn cool.

“I like it,” I told him.

I just couldn’t bring myself to touch it for some reason.

“I used all the security measures you told me to use for my devices, too,” Zaire told me. “No camera, no microphone, physical kill switch” — he showed me a pinhole at the bottom of the seam — “and all incoming signals are caught by the symbiote and held for five minutes first before being released to the seam itself using a custom encrypted key. So, if a memetic hazard comes through, you can isolate it by separating Clover from the seam. Not to mention, the seam was built personally by me. Cross my heart and hope to die.” He solemnly did some weird crossing gesture with one hand over his chest.

A paranoid list of precautions given by a dead prophet. Just my luck. Was this related at all to why Acacius thought Luka should be killed? Why did Acacius’ vestigial traces treat the seam as more dangerous than the guy who could summon apocalyptic entities into his body?

Slowly, as if trying to persuade myself, I probed, “Have you run into any problems over the years?”

“Not with my devices, at least. But your safeguards inspired my teacher a bit, so…” Zaire shrugged. “It’s impossible to design a system that will never fail. That’s why conventional seams are designed to make users consider information transmission as insecure and not private. Otherwise, if everyone got too comfortable, we might end up like SL-02.”

He looked at my face and quickly waved his hands.

“But you know that my teacher and I’s seam design is unique! I promise, I’ve been using them for years. It’s totally safe.”

I took a deep breath in an effort to control Acacius’ physiological reactions, looking back down at the gift Zaire had prepared.

“Can you show me how to use it?”

“Of course!”

Zaire walked me through the basic controls and showed me where he’d added his contact information. He’d also added his teacher under the name “M.”

“They’re antisocial, but they don’t bite… or, well…” Zaire trailed off. “Anyways, both of you like to keep things straight and to the point, so I think you should be able to communicate well. How about you send them a message to say hi?”

He placed the seam back down on the kitchen table and waited for my response.

I unclenched my cold fingers and grabbed the seam. Moving like I was wearing lead weights, I opened the messaging app and selected “M” to start a conversation with.

But when it came to actually typing anything…

That seemed to be my limit.

By the time I gave up and put the seam down, I’d broken into a cold sweat.

Zaire didn’t seem disappointed, though. In fact, he seemed pretty happy when he smiled at me.

“Nothing to say? It’s fine, you can save up all your words for when you finally meet M in person.”

I sighed. “I’ve met too many people lately. Give me at least three months of rest before introducing someone important to you, will you?”

“Sure, sure, I’ll make sure to schedule Teacher’s visits so they’ll never run into you,” Zaire laughed. “Speaking of visits, though, wanna go check on the caterpillars?”

I nodded. “Let’s set up the entrance somewhere convenient for you. It wouldn’t do to make you run here every time you wanted to see them.”

It turned out that Zaire was living in a different dormitory building, about five minutes’ walk away. His room was smaller and closer to ground level. “Your dorm should be one of the wheelchair accessible ones,” he commented. “Lucky you — no one needed it this year, and you got a bigger room. I could’ve used the extra space for my setup.”

I looked between the left half of his living area, which was dominated by a wall of insect and reptile tanks, and the right half, which had a computer and seam collection fit to rival Miss Bakhta’s. “Which one?” I said dryly.

In order to grant Zaire and his teacher access to KP-04, I added another condition to my Record of Authority: visitors approved by at least one owner, with the express purpose of caring for the Kalos butterflies or maintaining the Fantasm World’s state, could enter.

From my testing, when I created an entrance to KP-04, the door would remain at the location I placed it until I removed it from the “Entrance” section of my Record of Authority. Only three entrances could exist at a time; Luka and I had both left the one listed in Fulsgate untouched, and I figured I should leave Luka with one, so that left me with exactly one entrance to use freely.

Zaire and I debated over the interior decoration of his room before placing the door by his wall of creature enclosures. “So that I can add them to my care routine, no problem,” he said.

When we went to check on the butterfly eggs, some of them had begun to hatch. The tiny, fuzzy caterpillars were enthusiastically gnawing the leaves that Zaire had left in his makeshift enclosures.

Zaire began taking photos and notes like crazy. He chattered in my ear non-stop about what kind of supplies he’d need, and then he said he wanted to stay and observe their behavioral patterns for a while, and then he sat down and watched them with such intense stillness I felt like I shouldn’t disturb him at all.

I was still tired from the day, so I left first. Zaire barely took his eyes away from the hatching caterpillars, waving me off with a muttered sentence to rest well and lock the dorm door on the way out.

It was good that I’d found someone both eager and qualified to take care of those butterflies. I didn’t have the confidence to raise them at all.

Finally, it was Sunday.

The last day of break before school started again.

Somehow, I didn’t feel rested one bit…

Today, I was determined to make time for myself!

I just had to take care of a few things first.

After using [Honest Man’s Deception] to disguise myself as Chen Xiarui again, I went to find Isul. I’d barely set foot within the Secret-Keeper’s temple before he appeared next to me with a smile as bright as the golden beads at the end of his short black braids.

“It’s been a while, my friend. I was wondering if I’d see you soon. Are you in need of any blessings today?”

Not if it would get me turned into a butterfly…

“I kept your charm on me, but someone used a blessing of a Hierarch to strip away false appearances, and then things went really wrong. Technically, I kept the appearance I wanted, but I still got cursed for a while.” I gave him an aggrieved look. “What kind of interaction is that?”

Isul’s eyes sparkled. “How interesting! When two blessings from the Tripartite of equal power conflict, the Triarchs who granted them will personally mediate. But the Tripartite are well-known for their unpopular sense of humor, and the results can be quite unpredictable.” He rubbed his chin as he appraised me, then gave a meaningful smile. “Someone who could bestow a blessing from the Signifier, one of equal strength as me… I wonder who it could be?”

Yeah, no way I was explaining that more than I had to. Wait, Veric was some crazy high-ranking dragon-blessed Saintess candidate or something. Wasn’t the better question why Isul’s blessings were on par with hers?

“So, Isul, you know a lot about the Tripartite, right?”

He beamed. “I’m quite familiar with them.”

“Can we talk privately? I… had an encounter with them recently.”

“Did you really? How very exciting to have such an honored guest.”

“Honored guest?”

“It’s not every day that someone is graced by the presence of the gods, after all.”

That really didn’t feel promising to me.

Eyes crinkling from his smile, Isul beckoned for me to follow him into the mouth of the Secret-Keeper’s temple. The shadows fell over his warm eyes and dark skin before swallowing his figure more completely than any cloak.

“Come along, my nameless friend. For you, I have all the time in the world.”

Chapter 41 Back to Index