I loaded the Mysticism panel.

"What?"

Grey opened the clip and took out postcards and some black and white photographs.

"Haimers Island." She pushed the papers in front of Richard.

"My parents took me there when I was a child."

Richard picked up the postcards.

The postcard was printed in color, and although the colors were somewhat distorted, the scenery was still captivating.

A deep blue bay, the water so clear you can see the bottom.

At the end of the bay, mountains surround the area, their peaks still covered in snow.

At the foot of the mountain are small towns with white walls and red tiles, which cascade down the mountainside.

He picked up the black and white photos again.

"So beautiful," Richard said sincerely.

"Right?" Grey leaned closer and pointed to one of the cards.

"This is the small town where we lived back then."

The town is built on a hillside by the sea, and you can see the sea just by opening the window.

Fishing boats set out to sea one by one in the morning and return one by one in the evening.

The boat was adorned with lights, which, from a distance, looked like stars scattered on the sea.

Her fingertips lightly tapped on the photograph.

"This mountain," she said, pointing to a snow-covered peak.

"The locals say it's where the gods live, and the snow on the mountaintop hasn't melted for thousands of years."

"How do you know all this?" Richard asked, somewhat surprised.

"I checked." Grey's face looked a little unnatural.

"Didn't you... get into the Department of Classics at Imperial University? I figured you'd definitely be studying these things."

"So you specifically looked up Heimers Island?"

"Nothing special," Grey said, shifting her gaze elsewhere. "I just... flipped through a few books."

The girl gathered the photos together, but didn't put them back in the clipboard. She looked up and glanced around the store...

The two female students at the next table had already left, and the waiter was also dozing off at the counter.

She turned back, her voice lowered.

"Actually... in the past two years, my family has been making spices and more."

"Hmm?" Richard's heart skipped a beat.

"When war breaks out, some things actually sell better than spices."

"The army wants it, the church wants it, and some... well, it's hard to say exactly what kind of customers want it too."

The old shipping route on the Eastern Continent now carries not only pepper and cloves, but also other goods.

She spoke vaguely, but Richard understood.

Grey stared at his expression, as if trying to confirm something.

She took out a palm-sized tin box from a hidden pocket inside her handbag.

Once the lid was opened, there was a dozen or so bean pods stacked inside, lined with oil paper.

The pods were a size larger than ordinary cardamom pods, and their skins were covered with a layer of fine white fuzz, like frost.

"Touch it and see."

Richard picked up a pill and felt its coolness upon touching it.

The chill seeped through her skin, and despite being kept warm in the hand warmer the girl had carried the whole way, she felt unusually cold.

Upon closer inspection, the first scent is the salty, fishy smell of seawater, with an underlying, indescribable odor.

"This is called 'God's Throne Frost Bean'," Gray introduced with some pride.

"It grows on that snow mountain I just showed you, a little above the snow line."

The locals consider it a forbidden area of ​​the gods, and no one dares to go there to harvest it. They only manage to collect a small box of it all year round from the entire island.

"What can it be used for?"

"I don't know the specifics," Grey shook her head.

"I've only heard from regular customers that anything related to 'cold' or 'quiet' costs as much as several boxes of our ordinary spices."

She pushed the tin box towards Richard again.

"My mom asked me to give you this box, as a way to show you our family's distribution channels."

"...If you need anything from the Eastern Continent in the future, just ask."

"What others don't have, my boat might be able to find."

She said it as casually as if she were saying, "I'll bring you a scone next time."

Richard held the cold, frosty bean in his hand, looking at the girl opposite him.

"……Thanks."

"No need to thank me." Grey smiled slightly. "It was nothing."

The two sat for a while longer and finished the pot of tea.

Grey glanced at the clock on the wall.

"I have to go back." She stood up and straightened her skirt.

"An hour has passed. If I go back late, the dormitory supervisor will scold me."

"I'll walk you to the school gate."

"No need," Grey shook her head.

"Let's walk to the school gate together; the teacher will be asking me about it tomorrow."

The girl took out a small paper packet and placed it on the table.

"Here you are."

"This isn't a scone. Open it and take a look."

Richard opened the paper package.

They were several crescent-shaped shortbreads, with a thin layer of icing sugar sprinkled on the surface and pretty pleats pinched along the edges.

A sweet aroma wafted out, with a familiar spicy scent hidden underneath.

This spiciness is the same as the cardamom flavor from last time.

Richard picked one up and took a bite.

The flaky pastry melts in your mouth, releasing the aroma of almond slivers and the sweetness of icing sugar, all perfectly complemented by a hint of cardamom spice underneath.

It's completely different from what this coffee shop serves.

"It's delicious."

Grey breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's good, this is something only you can eat."

"None of the teachers at the academy can make it taste like this..."

She raised an eyebrow.

"They don't have my little cardamom."

As soon as she finished speaking, the hem of her dark blue skirt flashed across the door frame and disappeared.

Richard sat where he was and took another bite of the pastry.

Being with Grey always feels very comfortable.

………………

In the old alleys of the capital, at the very top of a three-story building.

Lillian was holding a kingfisher in her hand.

I found it by the canal this morning; it died after hitting a newly erected telegraph line.

Its neck was broken, but its feathers were still neatly arranged.

Its back is blue, shining like gold, and its lower abdomen is orange-red.

When it was alive, it must have been flying close to the water's surface, flying so fast that it didn't see the horizontal line above its head.

The windows were open, and the August air in the capital was stifling and oppressive.

The stone slabs on both sides of the canal had been drying in the sun all day, and by evening they were still emitting white steam.

There were ice vendors in the alley downstairs, their wooden wheels clanging as they rolled over the cracks in the stones.

The heat rushed in through the window, but Lillian couldn't feel it.

Three parts naphtha, one part lime water.

Birds with thick layers of oil need to have some distilled water added, otherwise their skin will turn yellow.

Peeling, scraping fat, and arranging bones—one step at a time, very slowly, but just the right amount of slow.

The attic was small, with a sloping roof that pressed down on your head, and a window facing north.

She paid the rent herself.

Her uncle didn't ask where the money came from, and even if he had, she wouldn't have answered.

A girl who was staying under the eaves of a relative suddenly found a place she had rented herself, which should have aroused suspicion.

But her aunt was happy to have some peace and quiet, with one less person in the house to bother her.

A titmouse was perched on the corner of the table.

He tilted his head to one side, standing on a withered branch, listening to something.

She left all the other specimens to someone else, but she brought only the titmouse to the capital.

Lillian turned the kingfisher's skin inside out, applied the medicine, and repeated it over and over.

This kingfisher under my control will not rot, will not fall apart, and will not be blown away by the wind.

It will remain frozen at the moment it flies the fastest.

She has been doing this for many years, initially out of fear that something would disappear.

Now she realizes that she was actually practicing.

Practice turning living things into still things, and holding down moving objects to make them stop.

In the past, this was just a skill that required both hands.

Now, things are different.

Lillian put down her knife and went to pour herself a glass of water.

The water was drawn from a well, so it should be cool.

Whether it's cool or warm, it's all the same on her tongue; there's no difference.

She first realized this in June.

At first she thought she was just tired, but then she tried sucking on a mouthful of honey.

Her tongue felt empty, and she couldn't taste the sweetness.

The guide, Ms. Holloway, left several pages of notes, in which she mentioned this situation:

"The faster you climb, the sooner it gets there."

Things that take others decades to fall off, you should lose in a few months.

Don't panic, this is your good fortune.

Good fortune, a word Ms. Holloway often used.

The first time I saw her was in the corridor of the nursing home where my mother lived.

That place was on the outskirts of the capital, with red brick walls and ivy climbing half of them.

The corridor was long, with windows on both sides that were closed all year round, and the air smelled of coal acid.

Ms. Holloway stood at the door of her mother's hospital room. She was not tall, but her back was very straight, and her eyes did not move much when she looked at people.

"You are a Hayward daughter."

Lillian hadn't taken that road yet, but she felt that the woman looked very familiar, though she couldn't remember where she had seen her before.

"Your mother and I were old acquaintances from our early years."

As Ms. Holloway spoke, her gaze shifted from Lillian's face to the half-open door to the ward.

"When she was young, her eyes looked just like yours."

Lillian followed her gaze.

My mother sat in the wicker chair by the window, her back to the door.

Outside the window was the sanatorium's garden, and the afternoon sun shone in, falling on her shoulders.

She was talking to someone, her tone as gentle as when she was a child, as if she were coaxing her to sleep.

But the garden was empty, and she was alone in the ward.

"She also glanced through that door once."

Ms. Holloway looked away.

"Some people who go through this process can come back, while others can't. Your mother is one of those who can't come back."

Lillian couldn't understand it back then.

Now I understand.

No wonder the doctors couldn't cure it, and neither could the parish priest.

Lillian never thought too much about how someone who was an "old acquaintance" of her mother happened to be standing in the nursing home corridor waiting for her, and who knew the things she most wanted to know.

There were too many suspicious points, but she couldn't care less.

The other person handed her a rope, which dangled into a bottomless abyss. She grabbed it.

As for who holds the other end of the rope, and what they're doing with it... that's a matter for later.

In the future... she may not have a future.

Lillian put down her water glass and sat back down at the table.

The kingfisher skeleton was laid out on the linen, and pieced back together one by one, just as it had been when it was alive.

She picked up the thinnest toe bone and attached it to the branch.

Last winter, Richard and I talked about Virgil and that well-worn botanical encyclopedia.

She only remembered that the room was warm at the time.

But she couldn't quite remember the specific details.

Lillian put the last piece of her toe bone back in place.

The kingfisher perched on the branch, its blue color almost golden.

It looked as if it would flap its wings and fly towards the canal at any moment.

Outside the window, the sky over the capital city slowly darkened.

The streetlights come on, illuminating the canal with shimmering gold.

The girl took something out.

It was a keepsake.