Chapter 126: The Missing Girl?

Richard tied the cloth sack shut and tucked it into the side pocket of his satchel.

The satchel already held his textbooks and notebook. With the added weight, it sat heavy on his back.

Old Biggs started brewing tea. "It's still early. Let's make another pot."

Richard's eyes lit up. Every time Old Biggs brewed tea, it was a perfect opportunity to gather information.

The tea Old Biggs brewed today was a little different; he had added a few dried sage leaves to the black tea.

The aroma of the sage masked the natural astringency of the black tea.

After brewing the second pot, he placed it right in the center of the table, scooted his chair back, and sank deep into the backrest, panting.

Richard waited until he had finished half a cup of tea before speaking.

"Old Biggs, that once-in-decades genius you mentioned last time..."

He asked casually, "What happened to them?"

Old Biggs paused mid-sip.

It was different from his usual comical, choking pauses.

Usually, when he choked, his eyes would go wide and his belly would bounce up and down, turning his whole demeanor into a slapstick routine.

This time was different.

His cup hovered in midair, neither lowering to the table nor rising to his lips.

Old Biggs's entire face scrunched up.

"Why ask about this all of a sudden?"

"You mentioned it last week." Richard carefully observed his expression. "You never finished the story, and it's crossed my mind a few times since."

"If I shouldn't have asked, pretend I didn't."

Old Biggs set the tin cup back onto the table.

"It's not that you can't ask," he finally said. "I just didn't tell you the whole story."

"Mhm."

Old Biggs shifted his gaze away from Richard, staring down at the surface of the black tea in his cup.

"That person... didn't die."

Richard was a bit surprised.

When he first heard Old Biggs cut the story short, his default assumption had been some kind of premature death.

That version fit the fate of every "premature talent" in the stories he had read.

A candle burning too brightly, distant eyes drawn to it too soon, and a flame snuffed out by a gale.

That was the standard ending for such stories.

Old Biggs waved a hand.

"She effectively defected from the lineage. Her relationship with the teacher turned completely sour."

Richard noticed the female pronoun.

"Why?"

Old Biggs shook his head.

"The teacher never mentioned the specifics."

"I asked, and Senior Sister asked, but she wouldn't answer."

"We could only piece it together."

He rotated the tin cup a half-turn on the table.

"The one thing we did figure out is that she refused to stop where Madam Marie was willing to stop."

"The teacher only ever said one thing about it at the dinner table."

Old Biggs's voice dropped lower.

"'What she wants to do, I cannot do, nor will I allow her to do it within my lineage.'"

"There was nothing else after that."

"The teacher never sent anyone to look for her. Senior Sister asked once if we should try to find her, and the teacher just waved it off."

Having finished his piece, Old Biggs downed his cold tea in one gulp.

Richard didn't press the matter further.

"Old Biggs." He changed the subject. "Did you come up with this way of brewing sage yourself, or was it passed down in your lineage?"

"The teacher passed it down."

Old Biggs's shoulders relaxed a bit, visibly grateful that Richard hadn't dug deeper.

"She said sage suppresses the astringency of the black tea, making it easier for the brain to come back down to earth after training."

"Does the brain stay in a highly sensitive state after training?"

"Mhm." Old Biggs nodded.

"You were just practicing continuously for a long time. Your nerves are still in a state of 'reaching out,' and the smell of sage calls them back in."

"Besides, a coroner breathes in the stench of corpses every day. My nose got pickled a long time ago."

The wrinkles on Old Biggs's round face smoothed out again. "There aren't many things left that are pleasant for me to smell."

"Is sage one of them?"

"Sage is one, and roasted chestnuts are another."

He tapped a finger on the table. "Next time you come, if you pass by Grafton Street, bring me a bag."

"Sure."

"I want the large, two-pence bag."

"You aren't holding back at all, are you?"

"With our relationship?" Old Biggs waved a hand. "Do we really need to stand on ceremony?"

Richard had to chuckle.

Old Biggs walked him to the main entrance of the Branch Office. It had already started snowing outside.

"The weather's getting colder. Be careful on your way home."

"Mhm."

"You need to keep up your practice next week."

Old Biggs stomped his feet at the door, shaking the snow off his soles.

"You've already grasped the basics of Stone Reading. Now you need to solidify it."

"Alright."

Richard turned and walked toward the street corner.

After walking about twenty paces, he glanced back.

Old Biggs was still standing beneath the gas lamp at the Branch Office entrance.

He hadn't gone inside, nor was he looking at Richard. It was hard to tell where his gaze was fixed.

Richard turned back around and quickened his pace.

......

There weren't many people on the bus.

Richard found a window seat and sat down.

The evening in Briston had already gone completely dark. Streetlamps receded one by one outside the window.

He popped his coat collar up.

The heater in the carriage only offered any real warmth near the driver's seat; the rear seats were practically as cold as the street.

He recalled the information he had just obtained.

Among Madam Marie's apprentices, there had been a once-in-decades genius in Inspiration.

Accurately differentiating twenty items at once, alongside an added ranking of their relative strength.

An Inspiration of this level could not be found in any of the materials Richard had read.

Old Biggs calling her "once-in-decades" was already the highest praise he could give.

She had defected from the lineage, but Madam Marie didn't send anyone after her.

"What she wants to do, I cannot do, nor will I allow her to do it within my lineage."

The words "cannot do" exposed the gap in their abilities.

Madam Marie's Rank was Major Adept. Something even she couldn't do...

The bus braked at an intersection, waiting for pedestrians to cross.

Richard's body leaned forward with the momentum, his gaze shifting from the window to his knees.

"Cannot do it, nor will I allow her to do it"—then why not allow it?

If it was simply a matter of her not being able to do it herself, she could just let her go.

"Nor will I allow her to do it within my lineage" indicated that whatever the student wanted to do would implicate the lineage.

If it had been a simple Rank breakthrough attempt, success or failure would be a personal matter; the lineage wouldn't be implicated.

What would implicate the lineage was another, far more dangerous type of matter.

The bus started moving again.

Richard's fingertips stilled against his knee.

The character profile of Hecate perfectly filled the blank space in Old Biggs's description.

The missing genius—someone even Madam Marie frankly admitted could achieve what she herself could not;

Breaking away from the lineage to start anew on her own;

Using the Triple Goddess as a codename—the Maiden was the past, the Mother represented Madam Marie, and the Crone was the ultimate destination she aimed for...

All these clues stacked together, pointing in the exact same direction.

The bus turned from Central Avenue onto the branch road for Slag Alley and slowed down.

Richard wasn't going to write this deduction in his notebook.

He wouldn't write it down—not because it was unimportant, but precisely because it was too important.

If he were Hecate, he wouldn't tolerate anyone pointing out her true identity, either.

Some things were enough just to figure out for himself.

The bus stopped at the entrance of Slag Alley.

The driver opened the doors, and cold wind poured into the carriage.

Richard pulled his coat collar up a bit tighter and stood from his seat.

A figure was standing at the entrance to Slag Alley, waving at him.

"Brother!"

Evelyn ran over from the street corner.

The girl was wearing a wool hat, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. She had clearly been waiting for him for a while.

Richard glanced at his sister's bright red nose. "Did you go out to play today too?"

She seemed to have completely forgotten the argument with Father from two days ago.

"Yeah, let me show you something."

Evelyn pulled an oil-paper package out of her coat pocket.

"What's this?"

"Cinnamon rolls." Evelyn held the oil-paper package up to his face, her eyes curving in a smile. "Betty's family cook made them."

"Didn't Mom tell you to try not to freeload off your classmates' families?"

"I didn't." Evelyn shook her head, then nodded.

"Okay, I did go, but her mother invited me. It's not like I just ran over there uninvited."

She poked her chin out from her scarf a bit and tapped the oil-paper package with her finger.

"Betty's family had afternoon tea today, so I stopped by to hang out for a bit.

"I drank two cups of hot cocoa, and they made so many cinnamon rolls. I packed three to bring back."

"Three?"

"Yeah, I ate one on the way." She looked a bit embarrassed. "It's cold walking, so I had to eat something sweet."

"Makes sense."

"We can eat the other two when we get back."

"You've already exceeded your snack quota for tonight. What if you can't eat dinner?" Richard shot his sister a glance.

"I'll definitely be able to finish it." Evelyn raised her right hand, which was clad in a knitted glove. "I swear in the name of Tacitus."

"...Where did you learn an oath like that?"

"From history class. Tacitus is a historian. If you swear by a historian's name, you can't lie, because the historian will record it."

Richard was amused by his sister's twisted logic.

The siblings walked toward home together.

The snow was still falling, but the wind was mild in the alley, and the snowflakes drifted down slowly.

Evelyn walked on his left. Occasionally she would skip a step, making the little pom-pom on her beanie bob along.

Upon arriving home, their mother's voice drifted out from the kitchen. "You're back?"

"We're back."

"Dinner will be ready soon."

Richard went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of hot tea.

There was no sage in the tea. Sage shouldn't be the scent of home.

He figured home needed a different kind of scent.

Cinnamon, caramel, onions, and breadcrumbs, along with the faint scent of flour that perpetually clung to his mother.