Edmund’s hand, holding the teacup, trembled slightly.
"...Fell?"
"The official conclusion was a misstep."
Mr. Hutton, sitting beside them, shook his head gently but said nothing more.
Edmund lowered his head, looking at the Silver Cross in his palm.
"We have this incident in our order’s archives. The file says: old age, dizziness, carelessness."
"The records have to be clean, and the living have to keep up appearances," Mrs. MacNeil said. "The dead don’t."
Silence fell over the table once more.
Mr. Hutton then moved his chair closer to the table.
He took a folded sheet of thin paper from his coat pocket and spread it on the tabletop.
The paper revealed a simple, hand-drawn map. The Gael Highlands were outlined in the shape of a crouching beast, with more than a dozen small red dots scattered across it.
Several very fine, dashed lines connected these dots, forming a loose web.
"The Seals in this area of the Highlands were originally established by the same group of Pre-Roman Priests."
Mr. Hutton’s fingertip landed on the center of the grid.
"Back then, they designed the entire Highlands as one large ritualistic system."
"No single Seal node can operate in isolation. They all mutually support each other."
The old man’s fingertip slid outward along the dashed lines, tracing over several of the surrounding red dots.
"Because Whitcomb’s Seal is gone, these dozen or so surrounding nodes will lose their support and begin to decay, one by one, at an accelerated rate."
"One by one?" Maggie leaned forward.
"According to my calculations, twenty to thirty years."
Mr. Hutton folded the paper again and tucked it back into his pocket.
"Sounds like a long time," Theodore muttered.
"It’s not," Mr. Hutton said without looking at him.
"In twenty years, Maggie will be in her thirties."
The old man turned and glanced at the red-haired girl. "She might have her own children by then."
Maggie lifted her teacup and set it down again.
"Her children will ask her," Mr. Hutton continued, "’Mother, why can’t kids go out at night in the Highlands?’"
"’Why do we have to draw so many lines outside the sheep pen?’"
"’Why does Grandpa have to burn a bundle of grass on the mountaintop every year?’"
Silence enveloped the table.
Captain Field rubbed the stubble on his chin.
Sarah’s hand had moved away from the rifle parts and now rested on her knee.
"So, this mission..." Mrs. MacNeil brought the conversation back on topic.
"The Guild takes on the jobs that the Royal Family and the Church ought to do, but that no one is willing to do. When the pay is divided by the hour, what’s left for each person isn’t much more than a normal job."
"Then why take the job?" Theodore asked.
Mrs. MacNeil gave a small, bitter smile.
"Young man, for hundreds of years the Guild has made its money by purifying nobles’ homes, blessing merchants’ ships, and performing Spirit Communication for widows to ask about wills."
"This is the work that feeds most of the Guild."
"But."
She set her cup gently on the table.
"When the Guild was founded, that’s not what was written in the first article of our charter."
"Then what was?" Edmund looked up.
Mr. Hutton answered in her stead.
"When kings grow lax, saints fall silent, and the people have no one to turn to, we must rise!"
He recited this with little emotion, perhaps because he wasn’t a member of the Guild.
Still, it was a fine motto.
Edmund murmured, "Our Divinity School textbooks also quote this line."
"When the Church quotes this line, it’s followed by a sentence criticizing the Guild for overstepping its bounds," Mrs. MacNeil continued, her tone laced with scorn.
"But when we quote it in the Guild, it’s to remind ourselves why the Guild exists in the first place."
"Both sides quote the same line."
She picked up her ginger tea, drained the last of it, and set the empty cup down.
"But the meaning couldn’t be more different."
The table fell quiet again for a long moment.
Mrs. MacNeil waved her hand. "Alright, that’s enough. Go on and get some rest. It’s been a long day for everyone."
As Richard walked down the second-floor hallway, he passed several other rooms.
Snoring already emanated from Theodore’s room, loud enough to be heard through the wooden door.
From Maggie’s room came the soft rustle of fabric; he couldn’t tell what she was doing.
Candlelight seeped from under Edmund’s door. He was probably still writing his observation report.
Richard unlocked the door to his room.
A panel materialized at the top of his vision.
The indicator for [Perception] Level 1 had silently changed to Level 2.
He hadn’t noticed at all when it leveled up.
The intense use of Spiritual Vision during the ritual, the information carried by the eight-fold chorus of Ether, and the sight of his Mother’s last gaze before she fell into the well—all of it had been silently consumed by [Perception] as experience.
Richard stared at it for a moment, then nudged the lamp’s wick up a notch.
The light grew a bit brighter, and the shadows cast by the wood grain on the wall became more distinct.
He didn’t rush to get out of bed. Instead, he laid his right hand flat on the bedsheet.
At Level 1, he could see the contours of the wood grain, the creases on a book’s spine, and the size of the residual silver ink particles between his fingers.
The focus of Level 1 was bringing edges from blurry to sharp.
The progression to Level 2 wasn’t about the edges, but what lies within.
This time, he could see the inverted Light Tree within the Throne of the Sun more clearly than ever before.
The roots were embedded in the center of his chest cavity, branching out into fine, vein-like tendrils that extended toward his limbs.
Deeper still, he saw a dark patch at the base of the Light Tree’s roots.
The dark patch wasn’t large, only about the width of a fingernail, and its color was much deeper than its surroundings.
When Richard extended his consciousness toward it, he understood what the dark patch was.
During the ritual, the [Shadow Armor] had consumed his Ether reserves too quickly, and the reverse flow had left a slight blockage.
Now that he could perceive it, he could use [Healing] to slowly treat it. It would likely take a day or two to fully recover.

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