Stephen blinked and said, a little uncertainly: "I'm your bodyguard. Shouldn't you be covering my room?"
Klein drew a quiet breath and suppressed the sound of his wallet screaming. "Fine. Pick whichever one you want."
The cost of hiring Stephen for a week had, after prolonged negotiation and back-and-forth, been settled at 1,500 pounds — nearly everything Klein had, wiped out in one stroke. Given that finding a bodyguard was entirely his own idea and his own need, there was every chance the Church would refuse to reimburse it.
But the alternative was his life. The money had to be spent.
Once Stephen's room was sorted, Klein said: "We'll rest today. Tomorrow morning, I'd like you to accompany me to the Kingdom Museum for the Emperor Roselle memorial exhibition."
"No problem."
Stephen gave a small bow. The moment Klein's door closed, his easy expression vanished. "Why did you suddenly decide I needed to be this woman's bodyguard?"
Amon's amused voice surfaced. "Because this woman carries the 'Concealment' that the Evernight Goddess laid on her. I'm curious why the Evernight Goddess would take that kind of interest in a Witch."
A pause. "Oh — and the sapphire ring on her hand is also far from ordinary. It has some kind of connection to Cheek."
Stephen didn't know who Cheek was and naturally couldn't grasp the weight of that. He said coldly: "What is all of this actually for?"
"Heh. Why does everything I do have to have a reason and a purpose? Can't it just be entertaining?"
That was true — partly. But not entirely. Mainly because Amon had caught a faint, indistinct sense from this "Witch" — something that felt like it was pulling at him, just slightly.
"Oh, and one more thing," Stephen said, stepping into his room and letting the door close behind him. "Who is the Son of Chaos? Why did you have me specifically ask the Lord of Chaos about that name?"
"Hey, kid — I think you've got something backwards."
Amon said lightly. "I'm parasitising your body. That doesn't make me your teacher."
"I didn't say you were. It was just an offhand question. Whether you answer or not makes no difference to me."
"Heh. Your composure is improving."
"It's either adapt or die."
Amon's voice dropped an octave. "Die? True, that's not so frightening. But what if I were to control your body — using your hands, right in front of your eyes — to kill your captain? Your friends?"
"..."
The muscles in Stephen's face twitched. He pressed his full weight against the closed door, head lowered, and said quietly: "I'm sorry."
"Ha ha ha ha ha."
Amon laughed.
After a long moment, His voice settled into something almost quiet. "I only wanted to know whether that Lord of Chaos had any connection to the Son of Chaos. That was all."
Stephen looked up, surprised that Amon had actually answered. He hesitated, then asked: "And the result?"
"There is a connection. Though not quite what I'd expected."
A pause — and then Amon's voice went somewhere distant and oddly still.
"The Son of Chaos… may already be dead."
...
Klein flopped down on his bed, unable to decide whether the exhaustion came from the danger of the Demoness Sect situation or from being completely bankrupted. Probably both.
He drifted off without meaning to.
He didn't know how long had passed when a faint, halting sound of prayer reached his ears. He pried his eyes open reluctantly and found the room in darkness — deep crimson moonlight falling in through the window.
"It's already night."
He lay there staring at the ceiling for a while. The prayer came again — a woman's voice, broken and uneven, laced with what sounded like significant pain.
"Is Miss Justice in danger?"
Klein snapped fully awake. He was out of bed in a single motion, into the bathroom on instinct, spirituality barrier up, four steps reversed, and seated in the ancient hall above the Grey Fog — all of it practically automatic. But the crimson star representing "Justice" wasn't flickering. Instead, on the far edge of the long bronze table, beside the Fool's seat, a soft clear light was pulsing outward in ripples.
"A prayer from a non-Tarot Club member?"
Two faces immediately surfaced in his mind — the pair of "maids" introduced earlier. If the Fool's honorific hadn't been passed to anyone else in this period, they were the most likely candidates.
He leaned back slightly, extended his left hand, let spirituality flow outward, and touched the rippling ring of light.
The scene around him shifted — he saw an overturned side table, a tilted sofa, books and papers scattered across the floor, and a brown-haired woman on the ground, writhing as if in mortal struggle.
"Brown hair."
If he remembered correctly, one of the two maids had brown hair.
"Save me, please save me."
The woman curled in on herself, calling out with difficulty.
She looked like someone on the verge of losing control — hair visibly lengthening, the outer layer of her skin taking on an eerie white luminescence. How could I possibly help with that? Klein observed for several more seconds, genuinely at a loss.
"It's… it's the Lord of Chaos… who told me to pray… pray to you… please, please save me…"
Klein blinked. The Lord of Chaos?
This woman was a follower of the Lord of Chaos?
But — why would the Lord of Chaos send her to him rather than help her directly? As a god, the Lord of Chaos couldn't possibly be powerless against a loss of control. So then, what was He—
A test?
The word surfaced in Klein's mind. He knew the Lord of Chaos and the previous Fool had been acquainted. Was the Lord of Chaos suspicious of him as an imposter, and using this woman to probe?
It would explain why — after already having Miss Justice and Klein himself — He was suddenly sending another new person this way.
He felt a quiet flush of anxiety. Like a poor student confronted with a surprise exam. Please don't probe too hard — I'm a fraud and the results will show it. However much you test me, I'm still just an impostor. Once you figure that out, will a god actually move against me? If a god decides to deal with me, I won't be left as crumbs.
And then — threading through the woman's pained, broken prayer — he caught it: a faint, indistinct, barely-there murmur woven into the sound around her. The murmur was not wild. Not evil. And it didn't carry any obvious malice.
Could that murmur itself be causing the near-loss-of-control? If she stops hearing it, would she stabilise?
Klein nodded slowly to himself. He reached toward the rippling ring of light and fed spirituality into it.
A beam of red light flashed — and the brown-haired woman's figure materialised in one of the bronze chairs. She was still curled in on herself, a low sound of pain coming from between her teeth.
A moment later, she seemed to come to. She sat up sharply, looked around with frightened, disoriented eyes, took in the surroundings with her guard up — and her gaze met Klein's.
A brief, stunned stillness. Then Fors seemed to register where she was, swallowed once, and stammered: "You — you're the Fool. Mr. Fool, sir?"
Surprised delight and frightened dread were fighting for control of her expression in equal measure. The delight was because the Lord of Chaos had "introduced" her to the Fool — and He had apparently been right that the Fool could keep the full-moon gibberish from reaching her. The dread was because, on top of the Lord of Chaos, she'd now attracted the attention of another unknown divine entity entirely.
Klein smiled and inclined his head. "Just 'Mr. Fool' is fine."
He paused, then said with studied casualness: "You mentioned just now — the Lord of Chaos told you to pray to me?"
"Yes — yes, Mr. Fool."
"When He passed you my name, did He say anything?"
"Oh?"
Fors stared for a moment, then hurriedly dug through her memory of the last time she'd stood in the Nation of Disorder.
"He said… He said He found me too lazy… and didn't want to look after me anymore, so He was sending me to you."
To be continued…
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