By the time everyone emerged from the cellar, the sky outside was completely dark.
The stars were bright, and a wind blew down from the Highland, carrying the scent of peat and sheep dung.
The carriage was parked outside the mill. The old coachman, wrapped in a blanket, was dozing on the driver’s seat.
He woke at the sound of footsteps and hopped down from his seat.
He saw the eight people filing out of the cellar, none of them missing any limbs, and was visibly relieved.
But the old man didn’t ask any questions. He just helped the injured onto the carriage.
No one spoke on the way back to the inn.
The carriage jolted along the wilderness path, its axles groaning.
Richard leaned against the wall of the carriage, his eyes closed.
His Spiritual Appearance was empty.
His reserves of ten units of Ether had been completely depleted during the ritual.
His body’s Ether reserves were now at zero.
The Throne of the Sun was still operating, and the Light Tree was still Breathing, its leaves all drawn in.
Breath Healing was slowly repairing his body.
The raw, cracking pain in his throat was gradually subsiding, and the bloody marks on his fingers had begun to scab over.
But he couldn’t suppress the exhaustion; a weariness seeped out from the very marrow of his bones.
Inside the carriage, Theodore had already fallen asleep.
The stable boy’s head lolled onto Maggie’s shoulder, his mouth slightly agape, letting out soft snores.
Maggie didn’t have the energy to push him away.
She was about to fall asleep herself, her eyelids fighting to stay open.
Edmund sat at the other end of the carriage, hands folded in his lap, his lips still moving silently.
He was still praying.
Or rather, he was using prayer to calm himself.
Captain Field leaned against the carriage door, his injured leg stretched out straight.
Sarah sat beside him, her shotgun resting against her leg.
Mr. Hutton and Mrs. MacNeil sat in the very back.
Neither of them spoke.
Mrs. MacNeil looked unwell, too. Summoning and maintaining seven Hosted Spirits placed a continuous drain on the Caster.
From the beginning of the ritual to its end, she alone had borne the "framework" of the entire Seal.
Once the framework was removed, she herself felt drained.
The carriage stopped in front of the inn, where the innkeeper was already waiting.
He held an Oil Lamp, its light flickering in the wind.
"Everyone’s back?"
"We’re all back. Everyone survived," Mrs. MacNeil said, being the first to step out of the carriage.
"And the injured?"
"One seriously injured, one lightly. The rest are just exhausted."
The innkeeper nodded and turned to go inside.
"I’ve got hot water boiled and ginger tea ready."
"I’ll put an extra blanket in the rooms for the injured."
In the inn’s main hall, the fireplace was blazing.
Flames danced on the logs, casting a warm yellow glow across the hall.
The eight of them filed in and found chairs to sit on.
The innkeeper’s wife emerged from the kitchen carrying a large copper pot, white steam puffing from its spout.
"Ginger tea." She placed the copper pot in the center of the long table.
"Have a cup to warm up."
Richard took a cup and had a sip.
The spicy heat of the ginger burned its way down his throat to his stomach, and the warmth in his stomach then rose up into his chest.
He finished the entire cup and poured another.
He was halfway through his second cup when Mrs. MacNeil stood up.
She set her cup on the table and looked around at everyone present.
"Our mission has been successfully completed."
She glanced at Captain Field and Sarah.
"Tomorrow, everyone will take the day to rest and recover."
"Ma’am, may I ask a question?" Theodore, huddled in a corner, timidly raised a hand.
"Go ahead," Mrs. MacNeil said, raising an eyebrow.
"This whole business with the Whitcomb Seal... since the Church won’t handle it, and the Royal Family won’t handle it, and they’ve been blaming each other for so long..."
Theodore sounded rather indignant.
"Why did they have you take on this tough job this time?"
"Yeah, and if a private Guild takes on a job like this, where does the money come from?" Maggie added.
"Does the Guild have to pay out of its own pocket and do it for charity? The Seal near my home is reinforced by us every year, and we’ve never seen anyone volunteer to help."
"I knew you’d ask about this sooner or later."
Mrs. MacNeil raised her hand. The innkeeper’s wife came over with a tin pot and filled the cups of the four Newcomers more than halfway.
"Let me run the numbers for you."
The Spirit Medium folded her hands in her lap.
"This Seal at Whitcomb, according to proper regulations, is supposed to be reinforced once every year in late autumn.
The funds are allocated by the Royal Family through the local parish, about two hundred and twenty pounds each time."
"Two hundred and twenty pounds?" Theodore whistled. "That’s enough to buy several houses."
"It’s enough to hire one Senior Practitioner and four apprentices for two weeks," Mrs. MacNeil corrected him.
"It sounds like a lot, but in reality, every penny has its purpose.
Ritual components, silver materials, labor for re-carving the Inscriptions, temporary hire of a local guide, and after it’s all done, you still have to ask the parish to perform a purification mass..."
"By the time you go through the whole proper process, there isn’t enough money left for the old local Priest to get a new robe."
"But in the last twelve years, the number of times this money was actually allocated is..."
She held up her right hand, raising three fingers.
"Three."
A momentary silence fell over the table.
"Where did the other nine payments go?" Maggie asked with a frown.
"The Church says the Royal Family withheld it. The Royal Family says the Church embezzled it."
Mrs. MacNeil’s tone was unreadable:
"The two sides have been filing complaints against each other in the Imperial Capital for over a decade, leaving Whitcomb completely neglected."
"So the local parish just let it be?" Edmund’s voice grew tense without him realizing it.
"The local parish applied for the subsidy through the proper channels every year. The old Priest personally wrote eleven letters of petition."
Mrs. MacNeil picked up her ginger tea and blew on it to cool it down.
"The morning after he finished writing the last one, he fell from the church bell tower."

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