Chapter 499: The Prudent Gentlemen

Piero began to take inventory.

"Boss, that director from the Genoa Chamber of Commerce last month... you said at the dinner table that his ship was like a bathtub."

"...He said the exact same thing." Mercury curled his lip, refusing to concede the point.

"He can say it. You can't."

"He was laughing when I said it," Mercury countered with a wave of his hand.

"Regardless, it definitely wasn't him. He doesn't have the means."

"Then... that foreman at the docks?"

"I just got his son a job last month."

"Then..."

Piero ran through everyone he could think of from the past two years. By the end, even his confidence was wavering.

He suddenly looked up.

"Boss, that person you offended in a dream last month... could it be..."

Mercury's hand froze as he reached for his coffee.

A long silence fell over the office. Downstairs, a delivery cart creaked past, its wheels clattering over the flagstones all the way to the intersection.

"...That person wouldn't do something like this."

He set the cup down.

"Why wouldn't they, boss?"

"Because if that person wanted to touch me..."

Mercury's expression turned grave. "I wouldn't be sitting here drinking coffee."

"Then..."

"However."

He picked up a piece of paper marked with twelve vertical lines and squinted at it against the window's light.

"I can't say the same for the others at that table. And there's always the chance someone on our side might make a move."

"If that's the case, we should invite someone over to take a look."

Piero didn't understand a word of it.

Mercury didn't care whether his nephew understood. He pointed to the corner of the room. "Go fetch the checkbook from the cabinet. The bottom shelf."

That evening, a short missive was sent out from Number 11 San Lorenzo Street, destined for a recipient north of the Alps.

The wording in the letter was exceedingly polite, never once mentioning what had actually happened.

It merely asked the gentleman to find time to visit within the week. The schedule was entirely up to him, with all expenses covered.

A deposit was enclosed with the letter—the largest single sum the shop had paid out in a decade.

Morning of the fourth day, 7:50 a.m.

Mercury stood by the window with his coffee. He had arrived earlier than usual today.

At 7:52, a person walked over from the intersection.

He recognized the man—a timber merchant from Trieste.

Last year, they had argued over prices in this very room. The man had cursed and complained, but ultimately signed the contract.

The man walked up to the door of Number 11 and glanced up at the second floor.

Then, he pushed the door open and entered.

A string of footsteps echoed up from the first floor, stopping just outside before three knocks rang out.

Only when he heard the knocking did Mercury's heart finally settle back into his chest.

"Come in!"

He set his coffee cup on the windowsill and hurriedly turned around.

In his frantic haste, he slammed his knee into the desk, shaking the entire table.

The door opened. The timber merchant stared in bafflement at Mercury, who was grimacing in pain.

"...Sir, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Mercury gestured toward the chair opposite his desk. "Perfectly fine. I've been waiting for you."

For that entire day, the second floor saw no rest.

At ten o'clock, a cotton merchant in Marseille sent a second telegram, stating that his elderly mother had fully recovered and that they would proceed with their plans for the week;

At eleven o'clock, the shipowner from Livorno visited in person, apologizing the moment he walked through the door;

Throughout the afternoon, guest after guest arrived.

At half past six in the evening, Piero escorted the final guest downstairs, returning with a sweat-slicked forehead.

"Boss, should we withdraw the deposit for that gentleman north of the Alps?"

Mercury wiped his own brow, though his sweat was born entirely of excitement.

"It's already been paid, so let him come. When he arrives, I'll treat him to a meal to maintain the relationship."

In his view, a small financial loss was a trivial matter; maintaining his network was what truly counted.

"Then... what do we tell him?"

Mercury stood by the window for a moment.

The sun sank toward the harbor, casting all of San Lorenzo Street in a wash of antique gold.

The rolling shutter of the ship chandlery diagonally across the street rattled down, and the old lady on the third floor began bringing in her basil.

"Just say that someone was playing a prank."

"...A prank?"

"Right, just a prank."

Mercury made his final ruling. He lowered the shop blinds, preparing to close up and head home.

"In this line of work, you're bound to run into something like this a few times."

"What do we do when we run into it?"

"We remember it for now."

Mercury turned around. The faint smile on his face was identical to the one he had worn in the City of Seven Hills when he doffed his hat, bowed, and took his leave.

"And then, we wait for him to come knocking."

Over in the Imperial Capital, Richard was also beginning to examine the results.

The ring of coarse salt remained intact, the silver mirror stood in its original place, and the Frost Branch Box sat wide open.

He had left all of this set up for three days, yet he hadn't used any of it.

Richard circulated the Condensed Mirror Method and read the bronze seal business card once more.

The stroke in the word "Solicitation"—on the first day, when he applied his blade, he had clearly seen the stroke wiped away from the edge, leaving a clean cut.

When he checked it the next morning, the severed ends had begun to mend.

By this morning, the stroke had reconnected on its own. No seam remained; it looked exactly as it had before his blade fell.

Richard placed the bronze seal back on the desk and leaned into his chair.

He hadn't gleaned much information over these past three days.

On the afternoon of the second day, he had pressed the Still Water deeper into the bronze seal, trying to trace the seal all the way to that office across the sea.

He wanted to know what was going on over there—whether the visitors had truly stopped coming.

But the moment the Still Water pressed in, his Inspiration had begun to flare with warnings.

Richard withdrew the water on the spot, realizing immediately that this business card went both ways.

The card was easy to read because the owner wanted it to be read.

But if he looked through the card to the other side, the other side could follow the connection right back to him.

The owner was, at the very least, a veteran Minor Adept. Probing a living business card like this was no different from walking up to their front door and knocking on the window.

Because of this, he had no idea what was happening over there. Did that gentleman fly into a rage, or had he simply failed to notice?

The only proof in his hands was that the mark he had severed on the bronze seal had grown back on its own within three days.

The Spell Formula had indeed taken effect, but the results were less than ideal. That was the extent of it.

It wasn't as if he could just call the man up and ask: 'Sir, how has your business been these past three days?'

That would just be asking for a beating. Richard shook his head, picked up his pen, and turned to a new page in his notebook.

"Section Three: Effective Range and Auto-Recovery"

He wrote down the first point:

"For the same target and the same stroke, self-recovery takes approximately seventy-two hours after severing.

The recovery process does not require the target's awareness, nor any ritual."

He paused after writing that, then added another half-line:

"Recovery speed is directly proportional to the total amount of traces the target has left in this world. The more traces, the faster the recovery."

That man had left far too many traces in this world.

Doorplates, ledgers, shipping schedules, insurance policies, the registries of over a dozen transit ports... not to mention all the people on that street who passed by every day and were used to seeing the blinds on the second floor.

He had severed a single stroke on a business card, but the other party was bound to this world by countless inextricable ties.

Once severed, it would heal on its own, finishing the process in about three days.

Richard set down his pen and looked at the bronze seal on his desk, now as flawless as before.

Genoa... Mercury was actually backed by this entire city of commerce.

Richard thought back to that night in the City of Seven Hills. The man had taken off his wide-brimmed hat to reveal his true face to the entire room, and then announced the address of his shop.

To dare announce his address in front of all those people and confidently hand out his business card to everyone—he clearly had something to rely on.

Moreover, Hecate had also received a business card.

If a spirit medium at the level of a Major Adept held such a card and wanted to make a move, it would be much easier for her than it was for Richard.

Richard picked up his pen again.

"Section Four: The Separation of Readability and Actionability"

"Any object crafted for the purpose of being read possesses the highest readability. Business cards, doorplates, seals, and posters all belong to this category."

"However, high readability does not equal high actionability."

"The reason such objects are easy to read is precisely because their owners are willing to let them be read.

Those willing to be read usually possess the backing to not fear being read."

He drew a line of emphasis next to this row and added a note: "Choose targets carefully."

Richard had also finished the first draft of his thesis while waiting for the results of the cut.

He ultimately settled on the title: On the Edge of the Mirror: The Feasibility of the Broken Branch Spell Formula on Reflective Mediums.

After finishing the draft, he read through it several times and felt quite satisfied.

He delivered it to the office that very afternoon. Professor McPhee flipped through it quickly.

He paused at the third page, then paused again at the seventh.

When he was done, he casually tossed the manuscript onto the desk.

"Rewrite it!"

Standing across the desk, Richard let out an "uh" without much surprise. What thesis ever got finalized on the first draft?

"Professor, which part specifically..."

"None of it works." McPhee pushed the manuscript back.

"What you've written is purely post-spell reflections."

"I wrote about the conditions for establishment in section two," Richard couldn't help but argue.

"You wrote: That small reflection on the glass narrowed the scope of analysis."

McPhee flipped to that page and tapped his finger hard against the paper. "Exactly how much did it narrow it by?"

Richard couldn't answer.

"When something ten meters away is reflected onto a flat piece of glass one fen thick, what is the ratio?

What if it's reflected on a bronze mirror? On a basin of water? On a polished piece of obsidian?"

The white-haired giant lowered his hand.

"Go back tonight and test all four. When you're done, give me specific data."

"...Professor, I don't have any obsidian on hand."

"The Department of Classics reference room has some. The School of Engineering sent two pieces over last year. Take my note and borrow one."

Richard carried his manuscript back.

To write the second draft, he really did test all four mediums.

He read the bronze disc target on the training room's east wall ten times using each of the four mediums, recording the success rate of the blade's fall, the time required to complete the reading, and the Ether consumption.

Once the numbers were laid out, even he was somewhat surprised.

The most effective wasn't Venus's silver mirror, but rather that thin pane of glass covered in yellow dust.

In reality, the silver mirror was high-tin bronze; pure silver mirrors were easily scratched and warped, and their reflective efficiency was inferior to high-tin bronze.

The silver mirror was almost too clear. The reflection carried an extra layer of Ether that mingled with the stroke he was trying to read, making it harder to isolate.

The Still Water was the most unstable, requiring a person to consume extra energy just to maintain it.

The readings from the obsidian were the darkest; he even had to guess where the stroke began.

The thin glass actually proved the best. Thin and dirty, it possessed no inherent nature of its own.

Richard wrote the conclusion in his second draft: "The fainter the medium's own Ether, the purer the reflection."

This time, when McPhee reached the data pages, he spent much longer reading them.

"This section is fine."

Richard breathed a sigh of relief.

"The later part doesn't work."

McPhee flipped to the back of the manuscript.

"In the fourth section, you wrote about the cost. You mentioned the Ether consumption, the backlash of a failed cut, and the traceability if the target notices."

"Yes."

"You missed one."

Richard stood there, waiting.

"Your own."

The office went quiet.

"There's an old saying in the Moon-Hunting tradition: you speak a name, and that name recognizes you."

He pushed the manuscript over.

"The broken branch is the same. Every stroke you wipe away remembers who wiped it."

Richard thought for a moment. "I've wiped strokes over a dozen times in these past two months. So far, nothing has come looking for me."

The white-haired giant shook his head. "A dozen times is too few. Come tell me that again when you've wiped hundreds of strokes."

He slapped his knee hard.

"Besides, what have you been wiping? A fifty-year-old factory bug, a few cursed objects, and some business cards people sent you."

McPhee tapped Richard's hand. "One day, when you provoke something that crawls back down the line to find you, you'll understand why I said this."

Richard lowered his head, committing all of these words to memory.

After taking the manuscript back, Richard first pulled out another stack of draft paper.

While toiling over his thesis and waiting for the Theogony Salon gathering, he had been working on something else on the side.

The chief editor of the Century Review had requested a regular column from him. He had put it off for nearly half a year, scratching out several different beginnings.

He had originally intended to write about the packing plant. But upon reading the finished draft, he found it read like an indictment.

The editor wanted a regular column, not a piece that would make people pound the table in anger, only to forget it a moment later.

His essay from last year had already proven it once: after the satire ended, the system remained the system. They would just swap someone else behind the same desk to continue doing the exact same thing.

He eventually deleted all the accusations, leaving only the narrative. It was a good story, but after reading it, there was nothing left to linger in the mind.

Richard wrote the title at the top of the page: The Prudent Gentlemen.

This time, he was going to write a comedy.

Three characters. He spent an entire night refining them.

The first was a Minister. Eleven days into his tenure, passionate, eager to accomplish great things that would go down in history.

This person had to genuinely want to do good; doing good was the foundation of the entire story.

If a bad person did bad things, the readers would curse him. Once they vented, they'd feel better, and the matter would pass.

But a good person pushing for a good cause, striving to move things forward throughout the entire story, only for absolutely nothing to move at the end... written this way, the readers would actually start thinking after they closed the magazine.

The second was a Permanent Secretary. Highly educated, with twenty-seven years of seniority.

This person couldn't be a villain either. He had only done one thing his entire life: ensure the department continued to run as usual tomorrow.

And for the department to run as usual tomorrow, certain things today had to stay exactly where they were.

The third was a Private Secretary, responsible for serving tea, filing documents, and greasing the wheels.

With a background in classical studies, he had originally wanted to stay at the university for academia, but having failed the exams, he entered the Department of Internal Affairs instead.

His duties were to serve tea, file away papers, and point out historical inaccuracies precisely when no one asked for them.

He was the only person in the story who spoke the truth. Every word he said was correct, yet he could change nothing.

Richard began writing the main text.

The first story's title was A Kind of Color.

Setting: The top floor of the Department of Internal Affairs, an office laid with a thick carpet.

Minister: Open the window. It's too stuffy today.

Secretary: Your Excellency, this window is nailed shut.

Minister: Why is it nailed shut?

Secretary: Two years ago, a document flew out from here, landed on the street, and was picked up by someone.

Minister: What was written on that document?

Secretary: We don't know, Your Excellency. The person who picked it up didn't know either, which is why the newspapers published several different speculations the next day.

(At this moment, the Permanent Secretary arrives for work in a crisp suit and leather shoes.)

Minister: Good morning, Mr. Secretary. I read the report from Grey Weir. Thirty-seven female workers at Plant Four fell ill last month.

Permanent Secretary: Your Excellency, it was four.

Minister: The copy in my hand says thirty-seven.

Permanent Secretary: Your Excellency is holding the form from March. We changed the form in April.

Minister: What does changing the form have to do with the number of people?

Permanent Secretary: The new form changed the "Illness" column to "Illness Attributable to Factory Operations," which must be certified by the factory doctor.

Minister: And the other thirty-three?

Permanent Secretary: They are in the "Other" column, Your Excellency.

Minister: They are not "Other," they are people!

Permanent Secretary: Of course, Your Excellency. They are people, they are simply registered under "Other," and "Other" is not included in the statistics.

Minister: This is wordplay.

Permanent Secretary: Your Excellency, this is statistics.

(A long pause)

Minister: Their skin is turning yellow.

Permanent Secretary: Your Excellency, the official terminology is "mild pigmentation."

Minister: The newspapers said it was yellow.

Permanent Secretary: The newspapers also called them canaries, Your Excellency. This term is very welcome within the department.

Minister: Welcome?

Permanent Secretary: It's very moving. It turns a health issue into a touching story.

Minister: What's so good about a touching story?

Permanent Secretary: Touching stories do not require a budget, Your Excellency.

Secretary: Sir, I looked into it. Canaries were originally used in coal mines. Miners brought them down the shafts because they collapse before humans do. Once the canary falls, the people know it's time to run.

(Silence)

Minister: Secretary.

Secretary: What are your instructions?

Minister: Do not write this part into the minutes.

...

Minister: I have no intention of being the sort of man who plays the violin while Rome burns.

Secretary: Your Excellency, Nero did not play the violin. The violin would not be invented for another fourteen hundred years.

Minister: Then what did he play?

Secretary: Suetonius wrote that it was a lyre, and that he sang The Sack of Ilium. Tacitus, however, said it was merely a rumor.

Minister: So did he play it or not?

Secretary: The historical records are unclear, Your Excellency. Only one thing is certain: the fire burned for six days, and he was outside the city.

Permanent Secretary: That point is exceedingly important, Your Excellency.

Minister: Why is it important?

Permanent Secretary: It proves that as long as a minister is absent from the scene when an incident occurs, people will still be debating whether he played an instrument two thousand years later.

Minister: I will not let this become like the Trojans, building their own wooden horse and inviting disaster into the city.

Secretary: Your Excellency, the wooden horse was built by the Greeks. The Trojans were only responsible for pulling it into the city.

Minister: ...What's the difference?

Secretary: The difference is that the Trojans held a meeting about it. They discussed it all day and ultimately passed a vote to do so.

Permanent Secretary: This metaphor is much more fitting now, Your Excellency. What truly matters is never who built the wooden horse, but who signed the document authorizing it to be pulled through the city gates.

Minister: Who usually signs that document?

Permanent Secretary: The Minister himself, Your Excellency. The Permanent Secretary is only responsible for countersigning.

Minister: I am going to sweep this matter out from under the rug, put it on the table, and bury it once and for all.

Secretary: Your Excellency, a single item cannot be simultaneously swept out, put on the table, and buried.

Minister: Why not?

Secretary: Because there is only one of it.

Permanent Secretary: No, Mr. Secretary, it can be.

(The Minister and the Secretary turn their heads in unison.)

Permanent Secretary: As long as it appears in three different documents.

Minister: I want to issue them masks.

Permanent Secretary: Your Excellency, this is a proposal of immense historical significance.

Minister: Why is it historically significant?

Permanent Secretary: Historical significance means it will be repeatedly brought up in the future, Your Excellency. Especially during investigations.

Minister: How much is one mask?

Permanent Secretary: One shilling and four pence. But money is not the issue.

Minister: Then what is the issue?

Permanent Secretary: The implication, Your Excellency. Issuing masks is equivalent to admitting there is a problem with the air in that shed.

Minister: There is a problem with the air in that shed!

Permanent Secretary: Factually speaking, yes. But once it is put into writing, we simultaneously admit that for the past fifty years, there has also been a problem with the air in that shed.

Minister: So what?

Permanent Secretary: Over the past fifty years, a total of eight thousand nine hundred people have worked in that air.

(...)

Permanent Secretary: Some of them are still alive. Your Excellency, people who are alive will protest and demand compensation.

Permanent Secretary: I suggest a trial run first.

Minister: At which plant should we run the trial?

Permanent Secretary: I suggest choosing a plant that needs it the least.

Minister: Why?

Permanent Secretary: Because if the trial is a success, it proves this measure is unnecessary; if the trial fails, it proves this measure is unfeasible.

(...)

Permanent Secretary: In either case, Your Excellency will no longer need to bear responsibility for it.

(A long pause)

Minister: Then which one do we choose?

Permanent Secretary: Plant Seven. The girls there do woodworking, making ammunition boxes.

Minister: Woodworking?

Permanent Secretary: Their hands are white. They look very nice in photographs.

...

(On the day of the inspection, applause was thunderous. The next day's newspaper headline: Minister of Internal Affairs Personally Visits the Workshop, Dines With Female Workers.)

In the car on the way back.

Minister: Mr. Secretary.

Permanent Secretary: Your Excellency.

Minister: What will happen to those girls in the future?

Permanent Secretary: They will be immensely grateful to you, Your Excellency.

Minister: I meant their hands.

(A brief pause)

Permanent Secretary: That is not within the jurisdiction of this department.

Minister: Then whose jurisdiction is it in?

Permanent Secretary: Under the jurisdiction of time.

That same night, the Secretary opened a new file.

On the cover of the file, he wrote in extremely neat handwriting: Given Due Consideration.

...

Richard finished writing the last page, blew on the ink to dry it, and read it from beginning to end.

When he finished, he set the manuscript on his desk and rested his hands behind his head.

...It was still missing something.

Of the three characters, the Secretary was the hardest to write.

The Minister was easy; he said exactly what was on his mind. The Permanent Secretary was even easier; whatever was on his mind was exactly what he would never say.

Only the Secretary was difficult. Every sentence he spoke was correct, yet every sentence changed absolutely nothing.

He remembered that television show he had watched in his past life. The acting of all three performers had been impeccable.

Especially the one who played the Permanent Secretary. His face could simultaneously wear the expressions of "total agreement" and "absolute impossibility."

After speaking, he would dip his chin slightly, leaving you to chew on his words yourself.

And then there was that canned laughter playing at irregular intervals.

In a broadcast, that much-maligned canned laughter actually functioned as punctuation, pressed specifically for inattentive viewers.

Every time the laughter cued, it was prompting you: Attention, this is where you're supposed to laugh!

But written out as serialized text, all of that was stripped away.

All he could do was write a few pitiful parentheses on the paper:

(A long pause)

(Silence)

Richard sighed. Speaking of which, Warren had mentioned in a letter last month that Hugh had come to the Imperial Capital.

The letter mentioned that his good buddy had run off to the Imperial Capital with a box of sketch paper, enrolled as an auditing student at the Academy of Fine Arts, and was scraping by drawing advertising billboards and trademarks.

Hugh actually possessed some artistic talent. His technical drawing skills weren't the strongest, but his ability to capture meaning was excellent.

That included the graduation portraits he'd drawn for everyone at the end of term, and the sketches he did for people at the train station during the conscription drive.

Richard mused to himself. Those who are literate read words; those who aren't, look at pictures.

Besides, a sentence is easily forgotten after reading, but a face sticks with you.

If only someone could draw that Permanent Secretary's face: half-drooping eyelids, hands folded over his stomach, and the corners of his mouth bearing a hint of impeccable deference.

From then on, whenever readers saw any bigshot in the newspapers, they would immediately think of this face.

He would have to arrange a meetup with Hugh soon. He could treat him to roast chicken legs.

Once the final draft was ready, Richard first showed it to a few people around him.

Sophia and Clara were both present that day.

Sophia snatched the manuscript away, leaning over the desk and laughing as she read it.

"This Permanent Secretary!" She pointed at the paper.

"This Permanent Secretary is too awful!"

"How is he awful?"

"He didn't tell a single lie from beginning to end!"

Sophia looked utterly incredulous.

"Every sentence he says is true, every sentence is looking out for the Minister, yet absolutely nothing gets done!"

She flipped to the next page of the manuscript.

"Back when I was taking records in the rear, I ran into this exact type of person."

Her smile faded a little as she spoke.

"We filed three separate reports asking for additional accumulators. The reply stated: 'The requested needs have been slated for comprehensive consideration in the upcoming fiscal year.'"

Clara hadn't made a sound from the side the entire time.

She waited until Sophia put the manuscript down before reaching over to take it.

She read those few pages from start to finish without a word.

"How is it?"

"I'm counting the people who will handle this." She put the manuscript down.

"...What?"

"From your desk to getting it printed, this has to pass through several hands."

She held up her fingers and began to count.

"Your hands, the post office, the receiver at the editorial department, the typesetter, the proofreader, the chief editor... At least six checkpoints."

She pushed the manuscript back. "The most important one among these is actually the very first. It's best not to write this in your own handwriting."

"I can change my pen."

"Changing your pen is useless." Clara shook her head.

"When the department dates inscriptions, they always look at the habits of the starting and finishing strokes.

When you write 'an', that final stroke always flicks outward."

She held her hand out.

"I'll copy it for you."

"Senior Clara..."

"I transcribe quickly. Besides, everyone in the department has seen my handwriting. They've seen it so much that no one will give it a second glance."

She thought for a moment, then added another sentence.

"Also, don't have the manuscript fees routed to your own account."

That afternoon, while Richard and Catherine were going over their assignments in her rented house as usual, he took the opportunity to show her the manuscript as well.

The red-haired girl took the pages and read from beginning to end without ever lifting her head.

Once finished, she placed the manuscript on the table and pulled out her notepad.

She wrote a line and turned it around.

"I can't laugh."

Richard's hand paused over his teacup.

"...Where is the problem?"

Catherine flipped her notepad to the next page.

"It's my problem. There isn't a single bad person in this piece."

"Right."

She flipped another page.

"Therefore, there isn't anyone who can be punished."

Her pen tip had pressed heavily when she wrote this line.

Richard saw the invisible scales hovering above her head tilt to the left, only for her to forcefully yank them back into place.

She turned the notebook around and wrote anew.

"I don't like it."

She paused, then added another half line.

"But it is right."

"When I read the part about that committee, I thought of my uncle's application for disability benefits."

"Submitted seven months ago, with three letters of reply since.

The first said the materials were incomplete, the second said the jurisdiction was wrong, and the third said it had been forwarded to the relevant department for study."

Richard didn't speak.

Catherine flipped her notepad to a fresh page.

"But I know this will make many people laugh."

After writing that, she closed the notepad and rested her hands on her lap.

A moment later, she opened the notepad again and wrote one more line.

"Keep writing."

Evelyn leaned over the low table in the Ashford House's living room. After reading all three pages, she looked up with a blank expression.

"They said all these things, but in the end, they didn't do a single thing."

"Right."

"Then what is this story about?"

"It's about the fact that they did absolutely nothing."

Evelyn thought about it for a long time before suddenly clapping her hands.

"I get it!"

"What did you figure out now?"

"If this thing were made into a pastry, it would be meringue."

She formed her hands into the shape of a ball.

"On the outside, it looks huge and rock-solid, and the colors are pretty, but the moment you bite into it..."

She clapped her hands together.

"...it's all just air."

Richard laughed so hard he almost spilled his tea.

He braced himself when he delivered the copy to his aunt in Room 314.

Isabella held a red pen in one hand and the manuscript in the other, not smiling once from beginning to end.

When she finished, she tossed the manuscript onto the desk.

"Boring."

"...How is it boring?"

"This Permanent Secretary of yours speaks too smoothly." She tapped the second page twice with her red pen.

"A real Permanent Secretary doesn't get straight to the end of a sentence.

They'll throw in a couple of 'to some extents' in the middle. Then they'll look at your face, and if they see you still haven't understood, they'll tack on an 'in principle.'"

Richard corrected those two spots right then and there.

Isabella looked a bit displeased.

"When I submitted the field funding application for the department last month, that person in the next office over said exactly that to me."

"He said: 'Associate Professor Ashford, your idea possesses remarkable audacity.'"

She scoffed.

"I was actually happy about it for a while. It wasn't until I got back that I realized what it meant."

She pushed the manuscript back, twirling the red pen in her fingers.

"If you have the time to make up jokes, you'd be better off finishing the revisions on your thesis.

Professor McPhee asked me in the department office last week if you were planning to keep writing that piece until next year."

"He didn't give a deadline."

"He didn't give a deadline because he assumes it's three days by default."

The day the manuscript was mailed out happened to be August 15th.

Richard walked to the mailbox at the intersection and stuffed the envelope inside.

A dusty gray pigeon was perched on top of the mailbox, tilting its head to look at him.

...

In August in Deerport, the rain fell with immense patience.

From seven in the morning all the way into the night, it was neither rushed nor slow.

The ships anchored on the river were all painted with the flags of neutral countries. The paint was fresh and bright, as if they were terrified the airships above and the submarines below wouldn't see them clearly.

Behind the pier sat a tavern. Its signboard bore three herrings painted in a very sloppy hand, the middle one possessing only a single eye.

This symbol was painted because the tavern was a regular gathering place for the mystical side.

The guest who walked in had a face completely covered in stitched-up needle marks. Even wearing a mask, he looked horrifying.

Loki tossed a copper coin onto the table. "Gin, a large glass."

There weren't many people sitting in the tavern.

A chief engineer was darning his socks in the corner, and two Hunters—it was unclear who they worked for—were huddled together chatting about something.

The tavern owner was in his fifties, bald, with short, stubby fingers.

He carried a dog-eared little notebook with him, recording everything from copper ingots to rumors.

"You look unfamiliar, sir," the owner said.

"I came from the north."

"The north is hard to travel right now."

"When has the north ever been easy to travel?"

By the time he was on his third glass, Loki began to complain.

He complained about the weather first, then the port authority, and finally his own face, saying he couldn't find any work because of it.

The owner sighed along with him. Information brokers were the best at sympathetic sighing, since a sigh didn't cost a dime.

"You people have a hand in everything."

Loki turned his glass halfway around. "Coffee, rubber, copper, machine tools."

"There's other stuff, too," the owner probed.

"There's other stuff, too." Loki's smile wasn't a pretty sight.

"So you hear everything."

"I hear a lot, but understand little."

"Then I'll give you a sentence you can understand."

He leaned forward and lowered his voice.

He pitched the volume perfectly so that the two Hunters at the next table could clearly hear half of it.