"The Zoroast family holds the Error Pathway, which lets them steal other people's Beyonder abilities."
Klein went on explaining, "You know, that's an existence at least on par with Ms. Arianna."
"No wonder Leonard used to think he was the lead in some drama, so flippant and easygoing back in Tingen. After all, having a live-in grandfather riding along inside your head is about as classic a setup as it gets."
Silas nodded, having gained some understanding of Leonard's mindset at the time.
"Honestly, I'm a bit worried about Leonard. That parasite doesn't seem like a good sort..." Klein said, looking somewhat troubled.
"But the two of them are bound too closely together. I'm worried that warning him might make the problem erupt sooner than it should."
"I don't think we need to be quite so tense about it."
Silas saw it differently. "The Church keeps watch over these things. They're bound to have some strategy worked out for situations like this.
The fact that the angel can sit comfortably inside St. Samuel's Cathedral suggests there might be some tacit understanding between it and the Church, and that its hold over Leonard isn't all that deep..."
Of course, this was all just his guesswork.
"Still, I'll keep a closer eye on Leonard going forward."
Silas added.
Whatever else he was, Leonard had once been a colleague, and from the look of things, he hadn't forgotten their old grudge either.
Ah, speaking of which. He remembered the earlier exchange between Leonard and Ms. Daly, and said to Klein, "There's one more thing about Leonard. From what Ms. Daly said, he apparently went to Tingen a few days ago, and his mood's been off ever since he got back."
"Hm?"
Klein blinked, caught off guard.
A few seconds later, as though something had just occurred to him, he spoke slowly. "That reminds me of a precognitive dream I had before. In it, I saw things like a tombstone, a crimson moon..."
After that, Klein slipped into a peculiar state up on the Grey Fog, most likely drawing on his Seer abilities to analyze the dream.
When it came to divination, Silas was rather short on talent, and found it hard to follow Klein's obscure, esoteric reading of the dream's imagery.
All he managed to grasp was Klein's final conclusion: Leonard had most likely realized the two of them weren't actually dead, and his trip back to Tingen had probably been to dig up their graves and confirm it.
"He's likely guessed at our disguised identities out at sea, and might even have worked out that we're connected to the Fool..."
Klein added.
Hearing this, Silas lowered his head and thought it over.
"That shouldn't really affect us much, should it?"
he said. "You're out at sea. Once you're back in Backlund under a new identity, he won't recognize you. And I'm in the Church, with a new alias, and the Church has already tacitly accepted these little complications of mine."
"True."
Klein nodded. "I think the only thing worth considering is how far we keep cooperating with Leonard and the angel behind him going forward... If it's possible, we could even think about bringing him in as a believer of Mr. Fool."
Did that mean bringing Leonard up onto the Grey Fog too, making him one of them?
Silas glanced instinctively at the thick fog gathered at the head of the long table. Knowing Leonard and his flippant ways, he'd better not go putting his feet up on the table.
"That depends on whether Mr. Fool approves of him."
he said.
The two of them fell quiet for a moment.
The three colleagues who had once worked together in Tingen now found themselves standing on different ground.
Before, each had kept his own secrets, yet they'd still been able to fight evil together under their captain. Now, the two who had come back from the dead found themselves wary of the one with a parasite living in his head.
One could only sigh at how fate had turned.
"Oh, right, there's one more thing."
Just then Klein remembered something from earlier. "Weren't you going to deal with the Aurora Order? I'll be heading back to Backlund soon, and if I make it in time, I'd like to lend a hand too."
He was already a Sequence 5 Beyonder now, no longer as helpless as he used to be.
Besides, he also wanted to use the chance to make contact with the Abraham family, that old and storied bloodline.
"No problem."
Silas nodded. "The official response is slow anyway. It'll probably be several more days before word from the Magician's report makes its way through."
He paused, then asked, curious, "By the way, how did you end up in contact with the Mirror Arrodes? Isn't it holed up in a Church of Steam chapel?"
"Ah, well, you might not believe this."
Klein laughed, borrowing Silas's own turn of phrase from a moment ago, "It came chasing after me on its own..."
He then told Silas everything that had happened to him.
Hearing about the mirror's string of almost embarrassingly obsequious behavior, Silas couldn't help but frown.
It brought back something from before: he and Klein had both once touched that ancient mirror.
When Klein touched it, Arrodes had fawned over him shamelessly, but when Silas touched it, the mirror had reacted with sheer terror.
The mirror seemed to know something.
"Is there a reliable way to reach it?"
Silas asked.
"There is."
Klein showed him a strange symbol. "Light a candle in front of the mirror, then draw this pattern on the glass, and it'll come when called."
Silas silently committed the symbol to memory.
Seeing how calm he looked, Klein thought it over, then added with a smile, "Oh, and don't frighten it too badly. I still need to use that mirror."
"Don't worry."
Silas waved a hand casually. "I just want to ask it a few simple questions, that's all."
Things like the true identity of the "Primordial Moon," for instance.
After that, they talked a little more about George III's ascension to godhood and about Roselle. Klein agreed with Silas's view that Roselle had quite likely become the Black Emperor.
However, since Mr. Fool and Bernadette had an ongoing exchange of diaries and intelligence, they felt it wasn't right to simply hand this information over to Mysterious Queen for free, and decided to set it aside for now and see how things developed.
---
Backlund, North District, Silas's home.
Snap!
The instant the virtual persona left the Grey Fog, it dissolved, countless fragments turning into a pure stream of information that surged into Silas's mind.
The Magician was preparing to report the Aurora Order... the Sun had started investigating Lovia... a subtle shift in the mood of Loen's aristocratic circles... an angel was lodged inside Leonard's body... an angel?!
The sheer weight of the information made his body freeze for a moment.
Wearing an odd expression, he kept sorting through it, learning that Leonard might well have dug up his grave, that Arrodes had been fawning over Klein, and more besides.
"You look pretty shocked."
M said with a smile from off to the side, an illusory hand waving back and forth in front of Luna.
Silas ignored her and sprang up from the sofa. He dashed to the window to draw the curtains shut, then made his way to the elegant full-length mirror standing in the living room.
He was about to try summoning the Mirror Arrodes!