I woke earlier than I had intended—and with the world already awake.
Birdsong drifted through the shrine grounds, but it was wrong. The sounds came in uneven bursts, overlapping where they should have flowed, as though the birds themselves had forgotten the order of their calls. It was not silence that unsettled me, but this—disarray. Nature speaking without grammar.
When I stepped outside, the stone beneath my feet felt subtly off. Not cracked. Not broken. Simply… displaced. As though the world had shifted in the night and neglected to inform us.
"Are you all right?" Heiwa asked, fingers closing gently around my arm. Her voice was steady, but her eyes were not. "You should see this."
I followed her gaze.
The courtyard was full of birds.
They lined the eaves and torii gates, perched atop stone lanterns, clustered in the branches beyond the shrine walls. Crows, sparrows, ravens—species that had no business sharing space—stood shoulder to shoulder in quiet communion. They did not sing. They did not stir.
They only watched.
Something in my chest tightened, sharp and sudden, like the memory of a forgotten loss returning all at once.
"Where is Miss Li Hua?" I asked.
Heiwa turned away without answering. When she returned moments later, Zinnia was in her arms. The child clutched her doll tightly, its button eyes fixed ahead, unblinking.
"No," Heiwa said softly. "These aren't Zinnia's sparkles."
The words settled heavily. Zinnia's butterflies had always moved. These birds were static, deliberate—placed.
Before I could respond, Miss Li Hua's voice cut through the stillness.
"Victoria. We will be visiting someone. Get dressed."
I turned. She stood behind us as if she had always been there, veil lowered, posture immaculate. Not a strand of hair out of place. Not a hint of urgency.
"You as well, Heiwa," she added. "Dress appropriately."
I didn't ask why.
Grief arrived before understanding—thick, uninvited, absolute. My eyes burned as though I had already wept. My throat tightened with the ache of mourning I could not yet name. When we dressed, Heiwa and I both reached for black without speaking.
Even Mr. Mumei-shi wore mourning robes.
I did not know who we were grieving.
But I understood the occasion.
The carriage ride was brief—too brief. We had barely settled before it came to a sudden stop, jolting us forward.
When Miss Li Hua opened the door, the world outside was unfamiliar.
Tall trees encircled a modest structure, their branches heavy with ravens. Other carriages stood nearby, their passengers already gathered in quiet clusters. No one spoke. No one lingered unnecessarily.
Miss Li Hua stepped down first. The rest of us followed, not by choice but by gravity.
"What about the investigation?" I wondered distantly. "Why are we here?"
Then I saw them.
Miss Mary stood near the entrance, her daughter Viviana at her side. Both wore black. Mary—who had always seemed composed beyond reproach—looked diminished, as though something vital had been taken and not replaced. That fracture, more than anything else, broke something in me.
"Victoria," Heiwa whispered.
I followed her gaze.
The woman from the forest—the one who had stood beside the professor—stood apart from the others. Her veil hid her face, but her presence pressed against the air, dense and unavoidable.
Two elderly men stood nearby as well, their bearing reverent, their expressions solemn.
No crowd gathered.
Yet the weight of the moment was immense.
Inside, the air felt thin. For a fleeting, irrational instant, I had the sensation of descending—like a carriage rolling downhill too fast, or a plane lowering through cloud without warning.
At the center of the room lay a small body.
A child.
White hair streaked through with black, as though ink had bled where it should not have. Her features were delicate, almost peaceful—but wrong in a way I could not articulate. She looked… incomplete. As if something essential had been erased and carelessly written over.
"Ah," she said softly. "It seems I gathered quite a crowd."
Her voice was calm. Unstrained. Like the sound of a page being turned.
Miss Mary collapsed beside her, pressing her face to the child's small shoulder. Seeing her like that—Mary, immovable and resolute—undid me completely.
"Regina," the girl continued, her gaze shifting toward the veiled woman. "You seem to be doing well."
Regina did not reply.
"The Pope himself came," the girl said lightly. "I'm not sure how I feel about angels watching me. And Hell sent someone too."
A faint smile curved her lips.
"Even deities," she added. "How extravagant."
Her eyes drifted to Mr. Mumei-shi.
"Isis… I did not like what Nyx did," she said mildly. "But I understand the reason. I simply disliked having to fight for my life every night."
Regina's head snapped toward him.
Then the girl—Luna—fell silent.
"You named me Luna," she said at last. "Didn't you, Regina?"
Her gaze lifted—not upward, but through us.
And she spoke.
I have always believed myself the hand that corrected the world. Where meaning faltered, I aligned it. Where contradiction arose, I resolved it.
They called me Logos. They called me law.
But laws are only noticed when they fail.
I see now—too late, perhaps—that I was not the editor. I was the annotation.
The margin note mistaken for scripture.
Still… I do not regret existing. Even errors are read.
If this is deletion, let it be precise. If this is correction, let it be gentle.
The record will continue. It always does.
And in that moment—
The birds scattered.