Chapter 259: Voldemort, Your "Lamp" Is About to Arrive at the Riddle House
A commemorative painting.
Ethan's pupils contracted slightly as he focused on it.
The painting showed Miss Black sitting on her bed at rest. Her dark green eyes were fixed on the doorway, black curls spilling over her shoulders. It looked as though she was waiting for someone.
Sunlight streamed through the window, softening the colours of the room. The whole scene felt warm and peaceful.
Only her shadow on the floor was wrong. It had two pointed ears and a muzzle like a beast.
A wolf's outline.
It lent a strange undercurrent to the cosy image, like a big bad wolf disguised as a harmless grandmother, waiting for Little Red Riding Hood to arrive.
Ethan thought as much, pleased to have gained a painting with such strong artistic value.
"I wonder what kind of power it will have once I repaint it. With the weight of history behind it, this should be a third-tier work."
"What is it, Light?" Miss Black asked softly, looking curiously toward the empty air Ethan had been staring at.
He came back to himself, put the painting away, and shook his head. "Nothing."
He paused, then studied her condition more carefully before nodding in satisfaction. "Looks like the potion has finished purifying the werewolf curse in your body. Your father will be happy."
He still remembered Mr. Black, who fused with the Necronomicon. That wretched state was said to be the price of defying fate. Successfully curing Miss Black should unlock the next section of the Necronomicon.
He could not wait.
Joy bubbled in his chest, and even his usually calm cobalt eyes shone with delight.
Seeing his expression, Miss Black's lips lifted in a small smile, then dimmed again. "My father disappeared when I was very young. I don't remember much about him, but my relatives say he did many terrible things."
That was why he had been cast out of the Black family.
"I see," Ethan said lightly.
He did not judge Mr Black for his choices. He had, after all, followed the trail that man had left and used it to pursue ancient magic.
A strand of golden light rose from Ethan's fingertips, becoming a bird that circled in the air and sang sweetly. Miss Black watched it, momentarily lost.
From above, Ethan's clear voice drifted down. "Whatever else he did, he suppressed your werewolf curse for many years. That alone would be an extraordinary feat even in the future. For that, I respect him."
Miss Black stared at him, wide-eyed.
She had never told him anything about her family. How did Light know, and in such detail?
The golden bird wheeled overhead. In its glow, the boy's face seemed older, more striking, more confident. A small smile played around his mouth, and a steady light filled his cobalt eyes.
His manner was gentle, yet for some reason Eve felt a faint sense of distance, as though a being above the crowd were looking down at humanity with a touch of pity.
"Light, I want to know who you really are…"
Before she could finish, Ethan shot to his feet as if jolted by a thought. "Ah. My end-of-year exams are coming up. I have to get back."
Time flowed at about the same rate in the past and present, and the silver key could never hold him there for too long.
He ruffled her hair, mussing the smooth, glossy curls. "I'm off. I'll come to see you again later."
Then he opened a portal and vanished.
Like a sudden gust, he had blown through Eve's quiet world, stirring everything up, then was gone.
"…Honestly," she murmured, head lowered, a helpless smile on her lips.
Feeling her heart beating faster than even her purified blood, she whispered so softly it was almost nothing, "I still don't know his real name."
She turned to the window, where fresh buds trembled on the branches in the breeze.
"It's fine. There will be time."
Winter to spring, spring to summer. There was still plenty of it.
Eve drew her gaze back, and a sharp light flashed in her eyes. "Next, it is time to pay a visit to those stubborn old fools who struck my name from the family."
[Congratulations. You have painted another extraordinary work.]
[Name: "The Lost Wolf Knight"]
[Tier: Third Tier, Blue Precious]
[Description: Brought from the past into the present, she is "homeless", and from this day on, she fights only for you.]
[Effect: Her movements are swift as mist, leaving no trace, and she gains increased speed in shadow. Her claws can tear through steel in a single blow. She has extremely high resistance to spells.]
[Hint: If you ruffle the fur on her head, she will be very happy.]
On the canvas stood a knight in armour, a werewolf with a proud, heroic bearing. Her cold, dark green eyes were very much like those of someone he knew.
He had repainted the commemorative work The Waiting Wolf Girl and forged it into an extraordinary painting.
"Perfect. Now there is someone to guard the moonflowers for me. The shadow bonus will suit the dark of the Forbidden Forest nicely."
Ethan smiled, flicked his hand, and summoned the wolf knight from the painting.
Heat rushed in as he dove into a warm, furred chest. She smelled of sunlight. He inhaled deeply twice, quite satisfied, then lifted his head with wolf hair sticking to his face.
"Rr?" the werewolf murmured, tilting her head and blinking those familiar dark green eyes.
[You have gained the specialty of Eve Black: Concealment.]
[While cloaked in shadow, you will be difficult to detect by senses or magic, and any attack you launch from concealment will hit with maximum force.]
"Oh, a bonus," Ethan said.
"Although I am a righteous, light-aligned wizard and do not need to stab people in the back… it will be useful for giving them a fright."
Meeting the hopeful look in the wolf knight's eyes, he thought for a moment, then reached up to ruffle the fur on her head.
"Go and guard the moonflowers for me. Do not let anyone trample them."
In Ethan's vision of the future, the Forbidden Forest would one day become a sea of moonflowers, white petals drifting through the trees on every wind. He would need a guardian strong enough to protect that dream.
"Owooo."
Under his hand, the wolf knight wagged her tail in delight and threw back her head in a ringing howl that sent beasts fleeing in all directions.
What sort of monster was this now? The Forest was becoming uninhabitable.
"With the wolf knight on duty, there is no need to worry about the moonflowers over the holidays," Ethan said. "Now, what to do this summer…"
An amusing plan was already taking shape in his mind.
He would approach Voldemort as Mr Lamp.
Pettigrew was dead, but old Barty's son still lived. Little Barty Crouch, the diligent Death Eater who, in the original story, impersonated Mad-Eye Moody for a whole year.
"Little Barty will still do everything he can to resurrect Voldemort. Even though I have destroyed two of Voldemort's soul fragments and one servant, I am a good wizard at heart. I do not kill without reason."
More importantly, Voldemort himself was a treasure trove.
How had he become that shrivelled, baby-like thing? What dark magic had he used? What inspiration for art could Ethan draw from him? What extraordinary materials might fall into his hands?
He was very, very curious.
As a Ravenclaw, Ethan was quietly pleased with his own unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
"Besides, even if I do not know where Pettigrew and little Barty found Voldemort, the original story makes their rendezvous quite clear."
"The Riddle House."
He snapped his fingers, delighted.
"If I lie in wait there, I am bound to meet them."
There were preparations to make first. New paintings to create. His usual works, such as Portal and Three-Headed Hound of Hell, were already recognisable as Ethan Vincent's signatures.
Mr Lamp would need his own portfolio.
"Thinking about it," Ethan mused, "I still have that mid-tier grand reward from finishing the sequence paintings. It should be hanging in the system gallery somewhere."
The Necronomicon was there too, waiting to be read.
He nodded to himself.
"Then I should visit the gallery first."