Shin Jin didn't go to his quarters after leaving the medical wing.
Instead, his feet carried him through the cathedral's winding corridors without conscious direction, past the evening prayer hall where younger seers chanted in practiced unison, past the meditation chambers where incense smoke curled like ghostly fingers, until he found himself on the stone path leading to the eastern garden.
A place few seers visited anymore.
The garden had been beautiful once—he remembered that much. White plum trees in full bloom, their petals falling like snow across carefully raked gravel. Akane had loved it here. Would run ahead of him down the path, her laughter echoing off the stone walls, her small hands reaching for branches she couldn't quite touch.
That was before.
Now the trees were skeletal, their branches bare and twisted. The air here was always cold, even in summer, as if the garden itself had been frozen in the moment of her death. Six years, and not a single blossom had opened.
The other seers said it was a spiritual anomaly, some residual effect of the Blight's passage through the cathedral. They avoided the place, uncomfortable with its persistent chill.
Shin Jin came here because of it.
He stopped before a small, unmarked stone nestled between the roots of the largest tree. No name was carved. No dates. Only a faint, hand-drawn plum blossom, nearly worn away by time.
The cathedral had wanted to give her a proper memorial. A plaque with her name. Words about her potential, her brightness, her promise. Shin Jin had refused. Akane had hated attention when she was alive—shy, quiet, happiest in gardens where she could be alone with growing things.
This unmarked stone felt more honest somehow.
More hers.
"Still visiting, I see."
The voice came from behind him, soft and knowing.
Shin Jin didn't turn. He'd sensed Mr. Ace's approach even before the words—that subtle shift in the air's pressure, the faint scent of ozone and something older, like flowers pressed in books and left to dry for decades. The man moved through the world like a rumor, there and not-there, substantial only when he chose to be.
"Akane liked plums," Shin Jin said, his voice flat. "When she could still eat."
Mr. Ace moved to stand beside him. "The White Plum Blight. A cruel illness. Leaves the body intact but empties the soul layer by layer, until there's nothing left to sustain."
First the ability to speak. Then to recognize faces. Then to remember her own name. Shin Jin had watched it all, helpless, as the niece he'd raised became a living ghost, present but absent, breathing but empty.
The Order's best healers had tried everything. Spiritual techniques. Blessed artifacts. Prayers to forces older than the cathedral itself. Nothing had worked. Nothing had even slowed it down.
She'd died on a spring morning, surrounded by flowers she could no longer see.
"Why are you here?" Shin Jin's jaw tightened, forcing the memories back down where they belonged.
"I heard your exchange with Yuusha earlier." Mr. Ace's tone shifted, becoming almost conversational, though the gentleness in it felt practiced rather than genuine. "Quite the passionate defense of your students. Especially the void-boy."
A cold trickle of dread traced Shin Jin's spine. "You were listening."
"Doors in this cathedral are thinner than one might think."Mr. Ace's bandaged head tilted slightly, and though there were no visible eyes, Shin Jin felt the weight of scrutiny. "And some conversations are too important to ignore."
The wind stirred through the dead branches above them, creating a sound like old bones clicking together. Shin Jin waited, knowing Mr. Ace hadn't come just to comment on architecture.
Mr. Ace reached into his robe and produced a small plum blossom preserved in clear resin. He placed it gently on the stone.
"I never met her," he said. "But Yuusha keeps extensive files on his mentors. Akane. Thirteen when the Blight took her. Six years this spring."
Shin Jin stared at the preserved flower, his throat tightening. The gesture should have been kind—a memorial, a recognition of grief. But coming from Mr. Ace, it felt more like a display of knowledge. A reminder that nothing in this cathedral was truly private.
"Strange how personal tragedies shape professional choices isn't it?," Mr. Ace continued. "You lost someone to a sickness the Order couldn't cure, despite all its power and spiritual mastery. And now you're protecting a boy with a condition the Order wants to study rather than save."
He tilted his bandaged head.
"I wonder—when you look at Noir, do you see a student? Or another chance to choose differently?Another child you might be able to save this time, if you just make the right decisions, pull the right strings, refuse the right authorities?"
The question hit harder than Shin Jin wanted to admit. He said nothing, watching the preserved blossom catch the fading light.
"Because grief has weight," Mr. Ace said, his tone turning clinical. "And when you carry too much of it for too long, you start making choices you never thought you would."
He let that hang in the cold air between them.
"You requested several files from the archives this morning," Mr. Ace continued, changing direction with practiced ease. "The Heian-kyō case file. The Custodian profile. The crystallization report from Site 227."
Shin Jin went very still. Archive requests were supposed to be confidential, accessible only to the requesting seer and the Head Priest. "You monitor archive requests."
"I ensure nothing vital is removed without context." Mr. Ace's bandaged head angled toward him. "I took the liberty of adding materials to your folder. A page from the Codicil of Broken Cycles. A map to Section 7B."
Shin Jin's breath caught. Section 7B was where Yuusha kept his most sensitive research. The personal projects he didn't share even with his direct students. "You edited the folder I gave them."
"I curated it," Mr. Ace corrected, and there was something almost amused in his tone. "You were always going to give them the truth, Shin Jin. You're too honest for anything else. I simply made sure it was the truth they needed to act on—not just the truth you felt safe sharing."
"Why?"
"Because they deserve to know what they're up against." Mr. Ace's voice dropped. "And because some battles can't be won by mentors alone. Sometimes students need to arm themselves."
He turned to leave.
"Keep your students close tonight, Shin Jin. The city is restless."
He paused at the edge of the stone path, his bandaged form a silhouette against the dying light.
"And some ghosts," he added quietly, "don't stay buried no matter how deep you dig the grave."
Then he was gone, his form dissolving into the garden's lengthening shadows as if he'd never been there at all. Only the preserved blossom remained as evidence of his visit, sitting on the unmarked stone like a beautiful threat.