I Loaded the Occult Panel

In a corner of the banquet hall stood a table set for the children, laid out with cake cut into small pieces and watered-down juice.

Seven or eight children of the Blackburn Family sat there; the oldest were around ten, while the youngest had only just learned to hold a spoon on their own.

One little boy stood up. He wore a small black velvet suit with white lace folded over the collar, paired with white knee-high stockings and buttoned leather shoes.

His light brown hair curled softly around a chubby round face, and a dab of honey still clung to the tip of his nose.

The other children at the table turned to look at him in blank confusion; all along, they had assumed he was someone’s younger cousin.

As the little boy walked past the Earl, the man’s legs gave way, and he dropped to one knee.

An instant later, everyone in the banquet hall who bore the Blackburn name rose to their feet.

Constance stood by the head table, one hand pressed over her mouth, her eyes wide.

”...Ancestor.”

Beside Richard, Viola stood up as well, her napkin still crumpled in her fist.”It’s him. I saw him when I was six.” Her usual nonchalance had vanished completely.

Richard looked at the little boy, and the longer he stared, the stranger that face seemed.

The boy’s nose was identical to Constance’s.

His eyebrows, however, were long and slender like Viola’s, while his ears stuck out just like the Earl’s.

And that slight downward curve at the corners of his mouth was something Richard had seen on the face of a ten-year-old boy only a moment ago.

Every single feature on that face seemed to have been borrowed from a member of the family.

”Every child in our family has to enter the chapel once when they turn six,” Viola said in a low voice.

”You stand before the family register while the head of the house writes your name in. While he’s writing it, a child about your own age stands right beside you and smiles at you, and everyone feels that he looks a little like them.”

She gazed at the little boy.

”The family calls this lineage enrollment. Only after I grew up did I learn that for hundreds of years, every child in the family has been seeing him.”

Understanding dawned on Richard at once. For a Virtuoso who had walked the path of propagation and bloodline to its very end, his Anchor lay within his descendants; he had woven his own existence into the shared childhood of this entire clan.

The little boy walked up to the seats of honor, tilted his head to size Matthew up from head to toe, and wrinkled his nose.

”You reek of fish.”

Matthew lowered his head and sniffed at his own sleeve.

”Burned the fish again a few days ago.”

The little boy rose onto his tiptoes and gestured with his hand. ”Besides, this body you put together is way too big. The legs on my family’s chair are crying.”

Matthew planted his hands on his hips and looked down at him. ”Yours is put together too small. I’d feel bad picking a fight with you.”

The little boy giggled, scrambled expertly onto the chair, and let his short little legs dangle and swing in midair.

Watching him swing his legs, Richard felt an overwhelming sense of incongruity.

”Little Ambrosius,” Matthew called out to him.

”Stop calling me little,” the boy said, puffing out his cheeks. ”I’m over three hundred years older than you.”

The entire hall watched the two of them bicker; no one dared to move, much less laugh. At last, Ambrosius remembered the business at hand and turned his head toward the Earl, who was still kneeling on the floor.

”Get up, little fellow. The floor is cold.”

Only then did the Earl, a man nearing fifty, rise to his feet, not even bothering to brush the dust from his knee.

”When a guest takes a seat of honor, our house needs someone here who can actually hold a conversation to keep him company,” Ambrosius said, still swinging his legs. ”Otherwise, people will think our family has no manners.”

He motioned toward Matthew with his chin.

”They haven’t managed to invite anyone for so many years that having someone suddenly show up threw them into a panic. Don’t hold it against them.”

”I won’t,” Matthew said with a smile.

”It’s my first time coming here too, though I’ve received quite a few invitations from your family.”

”Then why did you come today?”

Everyone in the hall pricked up their ears, and the Earl stood where he was, holding his breath.

Matthew turned his head, his gaze sweeping past one stunned face after another until it landed on the best man’s seat to the left of the head table.

”Best man, come over and sit down too.”

Richard sighed inwardly; he had known that with a personality like Matthew’s, once the man showed up, he would never let him off easily.

From the left side of the head table to that small round table was a walk of little more than a dozen steps.

Across those dozen steps, hundreds of eyes stayed fixed unblinkingly on him, giving Richard a visceral sense of what it meant to have daggers boring into his back.

Behind him, he heard someone suck in a sharp breath, a table knife clatter onto a plate, and Evelyn call out a soft ”Brother” from the back.

Matthew patted the chair on his other side—another seat reserved for a Virtuoso.

Richard stood before the chair, hesitating for a moment.

”Sit down. The chair doesn’t bite.”

Left with no choice, Richard gave up resisting and dropped into the seat.

A chair meant for a Virtuoso really was something else; the moment Richard sat down, it felt as though he had sunk into a cloud.

Standing nearby, the Earl opened his mouth, then closed it again without a word.

An honored guest had graced them with his presence for the first time in ages, and the very first thing he did upon sitting down was invite a young man to sit beside him.

”This is my friend,” Matthew said to Ambrosius. ”I came today on his account.”

”Friend?” Ambrosius widened his eyes, looking every bit as startled as a real child.

The little boy turned his head and stared fixedly at Richard.

Leaning halfway off his chair, he gave two hard sniffs with his small nose.

Right away, Richard could feel how utterly different this was from Viola.

”You smell of horse sweat,” the boy said in a voice so faint only those right beside him could hear.

Richard’s heart skipped a beat.

”Don’t be afraid, I’ll keep your secret for you.”

The little boy winked at him. ”If word gets out, that miser will come knocking on my door demanding fodder, and our stables could never afford it.”

He drew back, settled into his seat, and went back to swinging his legs.

Matthew reached out and broke off a huge chunk of cake; without even bothering with a plate, he cradled it in his palm and took a bite.

”This isn’t bad at all. Who made it?”

”Someone from my household,” Richard answered cautiously.

Not far away, Grey clapped a hand over her mouth as her face flushed crimson, while Evelyn looked thoroughly pleased with herself.

Matthew took another bite. ”Good stuff. It really does taste like home.”

Just then, Ambrosius slid down from his chair. ”Give me the register.”

The Earl hurried to pull out the dark chestnut calfskin booklet and offered it with both hands.

The little boy spread the booklet open on the tablecloth and flipped to a certain page.

Several lines had already been written across that page in different hands; the lowest line had the freshest ink—most likely the very line Viola had mentioned.

Ambrosius reached out his small hand and slapped his palm down flat against the page.

The Earl’s expression changed, and a wave of irrepressible gasps rose from the Blackburn Family tables.

The little boy closed the booklet, shoved it back to the Earl, and patted the back of his hand.

”Take your time... Our family lacks all sorts of things, but patience isn’t one of them.”

Across from him, Matthew had already stuffed the last bite of cake into his mouth and was brushing the crumbs off his hands.

”I have to get going.”

”So soon?” Ambrosius pouted. ”By custom, a guest at the seat of honor is supposed to stay through at least one full course.”

”If I sit here any longer, this whole room of yours will be dreaming of going back to their hometowns tonight.”

Matthew stood up.

”Half the hotel waiters will quit tomorrow morning, and half the ladies in the Imperial Capital will pack their trunks for the countryside. Your Earl couldn’t afford the damages.”

He glanced down at Richard. ”Once the wedding wraps up, I’ll be waiting for you in the alley behind the hotel.”

Before Richard could answer, Matthew had already turned and strode toward the side door leading from the banquet hall to the kitchen.

A waiter carrying a tray happened to push the door open from the inside just then.

Matthew walked right through, and the door swung shut behind him.

The waiter stood frozen in the doorway with his tray, then pushed the door open again; behind it, a soup pot was still billowing white steam.

The little boy waved a hand at the hall. ”All right, eat up, everyone. The food’s getting cold.”

The chandelier swayed slightly, and sound returned to the banquet hall bit by bit.

Both Virtuosos had departed, yet their influence still lingered in the hall.

At the next table over, an elderly gentleman was already discussing with his wife how they ought to head back to their country estate first thing in the morning.

The young waiter refilling tea at the head table stood by the door with the teapot in hand, gazing outside for a long time.

The other half of the guests were affected in a completely different way.

At the head table, Constance turned her head and gave Phillips a look.

Just one look.

A mouthful of tea went straight down Phillips’s windpipe, and he coughed until his face turned bright red; beside him, his mother hurried to pat his back, her eyes crinkled with laughter.

Sitting at a table by the window, Grey found an inexplicable image popping into her head:

A gray-eyed little boy, sitting on a high stool in her family’s kitchen...

She pinched her own palm hard, blushing all the way to the tips of her ears, and ducked her head to saw at the roast chicken on her plate, which had gone cold long ago.

Among the guests without circuits, any impression of the two Virtuosos from moments ago was already melting away. Richard walked back to his original seat and sat down.

Viola eyed him curiously. ”Mr. Best Man, just who are you?”

”I’m the best man,” he replied offhandedly.

Viola pursed her lips and asked no further, raising her head to sweep a glance across the crowded hall.

”Just watch. In another hour, no one in this room besides our few tables will remember who came here today.”

”What about your family?”

”Even the members of our family without circuits will remember our Ancestor. After all, we’re all his anchors.”

Viola chatted idly with him.

”Two Virtuosos drop by for a visit, and half the people in this room are ready to pack up for their hometowns.”

”As for the other half...” She set down her fork.

”The year after my great-grandmother got married, the street welcomed more than a dozen newborns. The parish vicar actually wrote a letter asking if something had been put into the well water.”

Richard picked up his teacup; the tea had gone cold long ago, and he drained it in a single gulp. When he had returned to the Imperial Capital with the Smoking Mirror, he had taken it straight to Madam Marie.

Madam Marie had taken only a single glance at the mirror through the burlap before having her porcelain-white doll carry it away, keeping it far from all of her own mirrors.

”A cursed object from the New Continent must be handed over to someone from the New Continent. I’ll pass it along for you.”

At the time, Richard had breathed a sigh of relief.

As for why he hadn’t gone to Matthew himself—the manuscript he owed the man last time had been intercepted by the Librarian.

Richard had no idea whether the Librarian had passed it on to Matthew after reading it, nor did he know where the two of them stood on the matter.

Logically speaking, a being at the Master rank could probably absorb the entire contents of his manuscript with a casual glance.

Then again, what if the Master actually enjoyed the process of reading a story slowly?

Under the circumstances, the wisest choice had been to avoid meeting Matthew altogether, which was why he had entrusted the task to Madam Marie instead.

Yet not only had Matthew shown up today, he had even gone out of his way to show Richard immense respect.

Looking at that empty gilded chair and recalling Matthew’s summons to meet privately after the wedding, Richard felt an ominous premonition.

Soon enough, however, Matthew was no longer the only problem right in front of him. Once the wedding banquet ended, the bridesmaid had to cut the cake into small pieces and pass each piece through the bride’s wedding ring.

After that, the pieces were wrapped in white paper, labeled with names, and handed out to the unmarried young women present.

When the young women went home and slipped the packets under their pillows, they would supposedly dream of their future lovers that night.

It was an old custom meant to bring good luck.

As the banquet dispersed, the unmarried female guests gathered around in small clusters.

Evelyn squeezed her way to the very front, her eyes glued to the cake, while Grey stood beside her.

Clara stood at the far end of the long table with Sophia’s arm linked through hers.

Edith stood near the wall, and Catherine remained at the very back, leaning against the doorframe.

Viola stood at the center of the long table, holding a small silver knife.

Constance stood beside her cousin, having already changed out of her wedding gown.

The back hall was quiet as everyone watched them cut the cake.

When she reached the seventh packet, Viola paused to count, then looked over the young women gathered around the table.

”The rest will be handed out according to the list.”

She pulled out the guest list, where several names had been circled in pencil.

Viola walked over to the doorway of the back hall, where Richard was standing.

Phillips had sent him over to keep watch, claiming that the best man needed to witness the ritual.

Constance walked up to him as well. ”The best man writes the names for the girls.”

The bride smiled, though her tone brooked no refusal. ”Only when a man writes the name by hand can the dream find its way to the person. That is our family’s rule.”

All the young women in the back hall turned their heads to look at him.

Up front, Evelyn waved a hand. ”Brother, make sure you write mine extra neatly!”

Letting out a soft sigh, Richard reached for his fountain pen.

A hand pressed down against the back of his own. It was Viola, and her skin was remarkably hot.

”The slips for dreaming bread mustn’t touch ink. Ink pins the dream down dead.”

”Then what do I use?”

”Lead, of course.”

The girl lowered her voice just enough that only the few people standing near the doorway could hear.

”Don’t you have a stick of lead right there in your left pocket?”

Richard’s mind raced faster than it ever had on the floor of Debate Week.

Refusing would be tantamount to admitting in front of everyone that he was hiding something shady over his left chest.

Asking a servant for an ordinary graphite pencil would not only violate the rule of ”using lead,” it would betray a guilty conscience all the same.

Glancing around, he realized Grey was standing less than three paces away.

Clara stood at the far end of the long table, and Catherine leaned against the doorframe.

Seeing him hesitate, all three of them found it odd.

Wearing an expression of complete nonchalance, Richard slipped his hand into his left inner pocket and drew out the lead pencil from beside the promissory note.

Someone in the back hall let out a soft murmur of surprise.

He offered a casual explanation: ”Oh, this is a little trinket a friend from Switzerland gave me.”

Catherine narrowed her eyes slightly, but since the statement was true, the Scales above her head did not tip, nor did Clara hear any dissonant note.

Viola eyed the pencil and raised an eyebrow.

Without another word, she turned and walked back to the long table.

Richard found an empty spot and laid out the slips.

Picking up the solid lead pencil, he wrote his sister’s name first just to be safe: Evelyn Williams.

The lead tip glided across the cardstock, leaving behind a faint silvery-gray line that could only be made out up close.

As he wrote, he spread his Spirit Vision over the table, keeping his eyes fixed on the tip of the pencil and the surface of the paper.

...There was no reaction whatsoever.

Where the lead tip had passed, the ether level remained completely clean, without a single trace left behind.

Relieved, he continued writing:

Grey West, Clara Farfield, Sophia Hardy, Edith Carter, Catherine Blackwood, Viola Blackburn. He wrote all seven names quickly, finishing them in one go while sweeping his Spirit Vision over them from start to finish, and nothing seemed amiss.

The only slightly unusual thing was how fast the pencil wore down.

That, and its temperature—held in his hand, the pencil was actually growing warmer and warmer.

When he wrote the first name, it had been roughly at body temperature; by the seventh, it felt like holding a hand warmer.

Frowning slightly, Richard tucked the pencil back into his left inner pocket and fastened the button.

Viola strolled over and grinned at him. ”Nicely written. Much neater than my uncle’s handwriting.”

Evelyn was the first to receive her slip, and the instant her fingers touched the cardstock, the writing changed.

That faint silvery-gray line darkened all at once.

It turned an almost glossy black, every stroke crisp and clear, as though it had just been penned in the finest ink.

Evelyn looked down at the slip and blinked.

Holding it up, she called out to her brother at the other end of the long table: ”Brother, I knew you put the most care into writing mine!”

The young women in the back hall hid their smiles behind their hands; it looked as though Richard’s reputation in their circle for doting on his sister was now set in stone. Richard turned to look at the glossy black name on that slip, and his heart gave a sudden thump.

What he had written moments ago had clearly been the exact same pale gray.

Sophia took the second packet and checked the slip; her name remained that faint silvery-gray, completely unchanged.

Edith received the third packet, held it close to inspect the pale gray letters, and carefully tucked it inside her botanical field guide.

Viola picked up the packet bearing her own name and saw that the writing was pale gray as well.

With a brief smile, she slipped the paper packet into the hidden pocket of her skirt, right alongside the spark plug.

When Grey took her packet, she discovered that the name on her slip had bent.

The strokes looked as though they had been pressed down by a bent nib.

Grey stared at it for a moment, then lightly brushed her fingertip over the ”G”.

With all the lead requisitioned to make bullets these days, who still used real lead in a pencil?

Clara was the fifth to receive hers.

The moment the paper packet settled into her palm, before she even had a chance to look at the slip, she heard a sound. Very low and very faint, it drifted out from inside the packet, creeping upward against her palm.

Her first thought was: ’The lead is ringing.’

Yet lead was the dullest of metals; you couldn’t get a ring out of it even if you struck it.

She raised the packet to her ear. The sound rose and fell in pitch, forming a very short, simple melody.

It sounded like someone humming a tune—and it was a girl.

Catherine was the last.

Stepping away from the doorframe, she took her packet and watched the name on the slip fade bit by bit right before her eyes.

Above her head, the beam of the Scales sank until it nearly hit rock bottom.

Catherine pulled a notebook from her pocket, flipped it open, and wrote down: ”Someone already left a mark on him first.”

All three of them were filled with doubts, yet none of them made a sound.

Grey held her tongue out of propriety; after all, this was someone else’s wedding banquet.

Clara kept quiet out of a Scholar’s instinctive caution; the humming in her palm was of unknown origin, and she suspected some unidentified evil creature was at work. Given Catherine’s temperament, she would ordinarily have marched straight up to Richard to ask, but her throat prevented her from speaking on the spot.

Once inside the ladies’ lounge, Clara sat before the mirror pretending to fix her hair while watching Catherine behind her in the reflection.

Catherine sat in the corner, staring at the nearly vanished writing on her slip with a grim expression.

After watching for a moment, Clara turned around.

”Is something wrong with your slip too?”

Catherine looked up at her, wrote a line in her notebook, and pushed it across.

Clara glanced down at the words on the page.

”Mine is humming a song,” she said.

Catherine’s eyebrow twitched.

The door opened, and Grey walked in.

She held a small powder compact in her hand, ostensibly there to touch up her makeup, but the moment she stepped inside she saw both Clara and Catherine clutching their paper packets.

The three of them exchanged a look, and none of them said another word.

”Should we go ask the others?” As the oldest among them, Clara was the first to suggest it.

They went to ask Evelyn, Sophia, and Edith, confirming that only the three of them had abnormal slips, whereas Evelyn’s was the blackest and clearest of all.

Sophia turned her slip over and over in her hands for a long while, thoroughly displeased.

”Why didn’t mine react at all?”

The three of them looked at her.

”Evelyn’s turned dark and clear, all three of yours are acting weird, and mine is the only one that’s completely plain!”

Somewhat indignantly, Sophia slapped her slip down onto the table.

”Does he not consider me one of his own at all? How many times have I kept track of our mentor’s schedule for him, and how many times have I covered for him sneaking out of the dormitory in the middle of the night?”

Grey, Clara, and Catherine all ignored her.

”Hey!” Sophia shouted. ”Did you three hear me or not?”

Grey borrowed Evelyn’s slip and laid it out side by side with her own, Clara’s, and Catherine’s.

One was a glossy black, while the other three were each strange in their own way.

”This pencil... recognizes people,” Clara concluded.

Smoking a cigarette by the door, Viola strolled over and cheerfully twisted the knife:

”Our family’s noses are rarely wrong. It looks like Mr. Best Man has already been marked by other Hunters...”

Elsewhere, Richard was bidding farewell to the newlyweds.

Constance had already gotten into the carriage, while Phillips stood by the door holding a cup of tea.

Seeing Richard walk over, he raised his cup toward him.

Richard took a glass of soda water from a footman’s tray and clinked it against Phillips’s cup.

”Viola was whispering in Constance’s ear for quite a while just now,” Phillips said.

”And then Constance told me.”

”Told you what?” Richard asked.

”That several of the slips handed out today were acting a bit strange.” Phillips took a sip of tea.

Richard’s expression stiffened slightly. Phillips clapped him hard on the shoulder.

”I’ve only been married half a day and I’ve already figured it out—marrying one is this much trouble, so if you were to marry four... tsk, tsk, tsk.”

He climbed into the carriage, then poked half his head back out the window.

”I just saw a few young ladies heading toward the carriage yard. You’d best avoid going that way when you head home tonight.”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head.

”Never mind, that’s the only way you can get home.”

The carriage door clicked shut.

Shaking his head, Richard went to keep his appointment first, turning into the alley behind the hotel.

His left chest had been radiating heat this whole time; he pressed a hand against it, having no time to deal with it for now.

Matthew was currently sitting on an upturned wooden crate, eating cake.

Who knew where he had broken off another piece from; he held it in his bare palm, eating with rough abandon.

Beside him sat a bundle wrapped in a piece of dusty coarse cloth.

”You’re here,” Matthew said with a nod toward him. ”Sit.”

Aside from that wooden crate, there wasn’t a second place to sit in the alley, so Richard simply remained standing.

”I came here today specifically to back you up.”

Matthew stuffed the last bite of cake into his mouth.

”I wanted that whole big family to see clearly just whose friend you are. Next time they flip open that breeding ledger of theirs, their hands will shake.”

Clapping the crumbs from his hands, he held out the bundle.

”By the way, the mirror you had my teacher give me has been taken care of.”

Richard crouched down to untie the cloth; inside, naturally, was the Smoking Mirror.

He reached out and touched the edge of the frame—the ether on the mirror’s surface had been sealed away tight.

Matthew leaned back against the wooden crate and stretched his legs out across the alley.

”Do you know what this mirror used to be for?”

Richard could only recite what could be found in books: ”Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, god of night and destiny. The Aztecs polished obsidian into mirrors for divination...”

Matthew cut him off. ”That’s what’s written in books. Let me tell you the part the books leave out.”

”Every year over there, they picked out a young man. He had to be handsome, without a single scar on his body, and he had to know how to play the flute, speak eloquent words, and walk with grace.”

”Once he was chosen, they dressed him in the god’s garments and adorned him with the god’s ornaments. For a whole year after that, he was the god.”

”People knelt when they saw him, he ate the finest food and wore the finest clothes, and wherever he went, attendants played flutes for him.”

”On the day the full year was up, he walked up the steps of the temple on his own.”

Matthew held out a hand, walking two fingers through the air to mimic climbing stairs.

”With every step he climbed, he smashed a flute.”

”Every flute he had played over the past year had to be shattered, one per step, until he reached the top of the stairs...”

Lowering his hand, he pointed to his chest and mimed digging something out.

”Over there, they called that person an ixip, which means the skin of the god, the image of the god.”

”A person puts on the skin of the god, and after a year, climbs the steps to be sacrificed.”

Richard listened in silence, not uttering a sound.

”This mirror was used to select that person. Even after the priests who presided over the ritual were gone, it kept dutifully carrying out its job.”

Matthew’s method of handling it had been remarkably simple and brutal: ”So I let it fulfill its duty. I laid out a flight of steps for it at the Mouth of the Underworld River, and with every step I climbed, I smashed a reed flute.”

”When I reached the very top, it tried to cut open my heart.”

Matthew motioned toward the mirror with his chin.

”A path can’t be cut apart, though. Now it’s just an idol that’s clocked out of work.”

As he said this, the smile vanished from his face.

”Whenever you’re wearing that mask, never let this mirror catch your reflection.”

”It may have clocked out, but after doing the job for four hundred years, if it actually sees someone wearing the skin of a god, it still won’t be able to help itself.”

Richard wrapped the cloth back around the mirror, tied the knot, and held it against his chest.

”Thank you.”

”No need to thank me. My teacher asked me to handle this, and now it’s done.”

The instant Matthew finished that sentence, the expression on his face shifted.

There was no transition whatsoever—one second his sunburned face wore the easy relaxation of a job finished, and the next, it darkened completely.

”Let’s talk about the manuscript.”

’Here it comes!’ Richard’s grip tightened on the bundle.

Matthew pulled that library card from his pocket. ”Back then, the Master put me down for a reserved loan: Matthew Kerrick, first in line.”

”And yet half a month has gone by, and They still haven’t given me the book.”

Stuffing the card back into his pocket, he stood up.

”You really are something now, kid—an author sitting right on a Master’s bookshelf.”

”Writing for a Master in Milan, writing for a Master on the train, having a Master extend your loan period, having a Master collect your manuscript in person on the train...”

Richard held his tongue at first; something about the man’s anger struck him as odd. Right now, Matthew looked identical to someone who had been stood up by a friend—claiming out loud that it was fine while nursing a bellyful of resentment.

Identical in every detail, which was precisely what made it feel so jarring.

When a person got angry, they breathed heavily, clenched their fists, stomped their feet, and the shadow beneath them shifted along with their movements.

Matthew did none of that; he simply used that face of his to act out ”stewing in anger” bit by bit.

Acting—yes, pure acting. That was the only word Richard could come up with right now.

”Since you’re such a good writer,” Matthew said, speaking again once his performance was over, ”that even a Master takes a liking to your work, I’ll give you a prompt.”

He lifted his chin toward the mouth of the alley.

From this wooden crate to the alley exit leading out to Brook Street, there were seven gas lamps in all.

Under wartime restrictions, only four of them were originally lit.

Matthew snapped his fingers, and the other three flared to life as well, forming a line of seven lit lamps stretching from their feet all the way to the alley entrance.

”I’ll give you a quarter of an hour to prepare first. Once you’ve thought it through, walk toward the mouth of the alley. Every time a lamp goes out, you have to compose a stanza of verse on the spot for me.”

He mused for a moment. ”The poem has to tell a story... Let’s make it about the frontier days of the New Continent.”

Richard’s brows drew tightly together. Seven stanzas of verse, and they had to contain a complete story from beginning to end.

Never mind seven paces—even if he were given seven days, he couldn’t guarantee he could write a good one.

As for copying something from his past-life memories, the man had already locked down the topic.

Off the top of his head, he couldn’t think of a single seven-stanza modern narrative poem that fit the theme of the western frontier era.

Seeming to read his thoughts, Matthew waved a hand.

”Don’t look at me like that. I’m not being unreasonable.”

”You don’t have to make it up out of thin air. Whether it’s history or myth, so long as you recite it yourself, it counts.”

”And if I can’t finish reciting it?”

”If you can’t finish, what lies outside the mouth of this alley won’t be Brook Street anymore.”

Matthew smiled again, as if they were simply discussing where to go for the weekend.

”Of course I won’t kill you. I couldn’t bear to.”

”There are plenty of fun places in the New Continent. West of the Central Mountain Range, there’s a valley where only a single kind of tree grows—the leaf I gave you was plucked right from there.”

”There’s a town where, after the mine collapsed, time stopped and has been looping infinitely through those five minutes of the collapse ever since.”

”And there’s a camp where the stakes driven into the ground by surveyors during the day creep westward on their own at night; they kept creeping and creeping until the surveyors followed the stakes right out of camp.”

He tilted his head. ”When the time comes, you can pick a spot, and I’ll keep you company so we can take our time playing.”

Richard calculated silently. If he were still trapped in the New Continent on the night of the winter solstice, his shadow wouldn’t be able to go down the well, which meant standing up the lord of the hunt.

Once the loan period expired on February ninth, the Mahabharata manuscript would vanish on its own along with his half-finished draft, and the Master’s mood might well shift from fair to cloudy, or even stormy.

And then there was the round table in mid-February, where Hermes would be absent...

Every single item on his carefully arranged schedule would be thrown into complete chaos the moment the street outside this alley changed into the New Continent.

Standing beneath the lamp with his mind in a frantic whirl, Richard suddenly thought of the old allusion to Cao Zijian.

Never had he imagined that he, Richard, would see the day someone forced him to compose a poem within seven paces.