In the evening, Estel finally found time to pay the Witch a visit.

  Calm down, Estel. Deep breaths. Just say that the kiss was a moment of folly and you didn’t mean anything deep by it.

  She knocked twice on the weathered cottage door. It creaked open almost immediately, revealing Alice with her usual smile. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “I brought some pastries the cook made,” she said hesitantly, holding up a rge basket. “W…would you like to give them a try?”

  “Ooh, they smell delicious!” Alice stepped aside and gestured for her to come inside. “How’s life so far, Este?”

  “Este?” Estel tilted her head in confusion. “I’m as alive as ever, if that is what you are asking.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a cute nickname?” she teased, ughing breezily. “And no, not that. What have you been up to as of te?”

  “Just attending to estate and state matters round the clock, I suppose.” Estel heaved a sigh as she sank into one of the two armchairs. “It appears that His Highness has not been tending to his duties, and no self-respecting courtier would trust a commoner dy with fulfilling His Highness’ responsibilities in his stead, which meant most of the paperwork found their way to my desk.”

  “Yikes, that sounds rough,” Alice murmured in a sympathetic tone, picking up a puff pastry and biting into it. “I can’t imagine not having a healthy work-life bance even in a medieval fantasy world. No wonder your eyebags have gotten worse, Este.”

  “Really?” She subconsciously touched beneath her eyes. “Even though I have been drinking plenty of herbal tea…”

  “You should ditch tea and start drinking coffee instead,” Alice procimed. “Do you even know how powerful coffee is? It sparked the Enlightenment. Fueled revolutions. Toppled empires!”

  “Um, should I be drinking something that sounds so subversive?”

  “Just kidding~”

  Estel chuckled under her breath as she made a cup of coffee for herself, adding three cubes of sugar this time. “By the by, how is it going with Robin? Has he turned up anything valuable from the thieves’ market?”

  “Oh, he actually just dropped by yesterday,” Alice said, happily devouring another pastry. “As I thought, the conspirators are just low-ranking Temprs pouncing on the dukedom’s crisis to spread their radical religious ambitions. Robin easily kicked their asses and threw the whole lot into jail.”

  Estel raised a brow. “That’s fast.”

  “I was surprised too,” Alice agreed. “Apparently, the thought of having you be in his debt was a potent motivation for him to work overtime and wrap up the matter quickly. At least that was what he told me.”

  “…I may need to double the patrol around the manor after this.”

  Alice let out a peal of ughter. “That is exactly what I said in response.”

  Estel joined in, relieved that the mood was light—and that she had made no mention of their kiss so far.

  “Ah, by the way,” Alice started, brushing crumbs off her skirt, “what are your pns for the festival that is coming up soon?”

  “You mean the anniversary celebrations of the Crusade?” Estel paused for a moment. “Funnily enough, this morning, I received an invitation from the Margrave to attend the festival in his estate. I haven’t decided on my reply, though.”

  “The Margrave?” she asked with a bemused look. “Who’s that?”

  “You don’t know? Lord Karolus is the head of the House Selvern—the same house that gave the Temprs nd to establish their headquarters and sponsored the Crusade,” Estel expined. “I’ve heard that the festivities held in the margravate puts even the capital’s to shame.”

  For a few moments, Alice said nothing. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and her brows drew together in thought.

  “What’s wrong?” Estel asked, noticing her uneasy reaction.

  “This…isn’t something that happened in either the original game or the story,” she muttered finally. “Was it because Robin captured the conspirators too early? No, it can’t be—those guys were only mentioned in one chapter, and that was way before the events of the festival. Shit, was there something I missed? But I already made sure to be careful…”

  “W-what do you mean?” Estel pressed urgently, her voice sharpening. “Tell me what’s going on, Alice!”

  A look of despair fshed across Alice’s face—a look that she had never seen before.

  “Este, I’m sorry…the plot has deviated way more than I thought.”

  -

  The air in the dungeon was cold and damp, thick with mildew and the stench of unwashed bodies. Cracked stone walls oozed moisture, and the iron bars of each cell were rusted with time and neglect. Oil nterns flickered dully from iron hooks along the corridor, casting long, trembling shadows across the floor.

  “…in nymine Lumina et sphritus sancti, Amen.”

  Within one of the deepest cells, three Temprs sat huddled in prayer, their once pristine-white surcoats caked with dirt and dried blood. One of them clutched a sacramental crystal on the rosary around his neck as he solemnly recited the next line.

  “…sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum…”

  “Shut up, you Tempr bastards!” a raspy voice barked from the adjacent cell. “No one here wants to listen to your ramblings all damn night!”

  The youngest of the three flinched at the interruption, but the eldest—with his right hand wrapped tightly around the rosary—continued unfazed, whispering each word like it was all that tethered him to sanity.

  “Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo, Amen.”

  A moment ter, heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. Footsteps that were different from the brisk stride of guards changing shifts or the drunken trudge of a warden past his time.

  These steps were deliberate. Clean.

  The three Temprs straightened instinctively.

  Then came the jangle of keys, and a pale, ntern-lit face came into view: the warden, thin and sour-looking, with a ring of iron keys glinting at his hip. But it wasn’t him the prisoners focused on.

  Behind him, half-shrouded in the gloom, stood a woman cloaked in deep sable. Her hood was raised, casting a veil of shadow over her features, and at her side hung a strange, dagger-like implement in a cquered sheath.

  The warden gnced over his shoulder with a nervous twitch and cleared his throat.

  “These are the three Temprs that were arrested during the brawl at the thieves’ market,” he said, unusually subdued. “There was a man in green who was also involved in the fight, but he slipped away before the guards could capture him.”

  The woman said nothing. She stepped forward, her footsteps almost inaudible now against the stone. Her eyes, a piercing gcial blue, swept over the three men not with curiosity, but with cool disdain. Like a buyer surveying damaged goods at a street auction.

  “And their charges?” she asked. Her voice was low and precise, cold enough to freeze the air between them.

  The warden licked his lips and consulted the ledger he held. “Battery. Disturbing the peace. And…high treason.”

  A pause. Then she nodded once, slowly. “You may leave us.”

  The warden hesitated. “W-with all due respect, it’s not protocol to—”

  Her gaze shifted towards him.

  He stopped speaking. The ntern’s fme stuttered in its gss, casting wild shadows across the walls.

  Then the warden turned stiffly on his heel and disappeared down the corridor without another word.

  Silence returned.

  The woman took a step closer to the iron bars. The eldest Tempr braced himself instinctively, his lips trembling in silent prayer. The youngest swallowed hard.

  Finally, the third Tempr broke the silence, voice hoarse with fear as he spoke.

  “I…I-Identify yourself. Who are you?”

  With gloved fingers, she reached up and pulled back the edge of her hood, just enough to let the ntern light kiss her features.

  The Tempr’s breath caught.

  Her face looked as though it had been sculpted by the heavens themselves—sharp yet graceful, with high cheekbones and a noble, faultless symmetry that belonged more to a saint than a woman of flesh and blood. Framing that divine visage was a cascade of silken golden hair, impossibly fine and luminous even in the dimness, as if spun from sunlight itself. It tumbled in loose waves over her shoulders, catching the flickering glow of the ntern like threads of molten gold.

  “O Goddess Lumina, your endless grace and mercy flows forth!” the youngest cried out at once, colpsing in a full prostration and pressing his forehead to the filthy stone floor. “Forgive us our sins and grant us salvation!”

  The eldest followed suit almost immediately, letting go of his rosary and kneeling with a strangled gasp.

  “O Goddess Lumina, we confess to you all our sins! Please deliver us from the devil’s temptation, and bless us with your eternal paradise!”

  “W-what are you two doing?” the third Tempr stammered, his gaze frantically darting between the two prostrating Temprs and the cloaked woman. “She’s not the Goddess!”

  She tilted her head ever so slightly.

  “You…how are you able to resist?”

  He froze, wide eyes meeting hers.

  And then, she chuckled. Low and melodious, it echoed off the damp stone walls like the soft chime of silver bells. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t mocking. It was something far worse—amused.

  With a sinking dread, the Tempr realised that the entire dungeon had fallen silent. Every prisoner had their hands csped together in prayer, tears streaming down their dirt-stained cheeks as they whispered the Goddess’ name over and over again.

  “W-w-who are you?!” he screamed, fingernails desperately cwing against the stone as he tried to press his entire body against the far wall. “Don’t come near me!”

  “Oh, please don’t be frightened,” she said, fshing a gentle smile. “Since you are the only one unaffected, I hope we can have a normal conversation together.”

  His mouth parted, but try as he might, he was unable to speak or move.

  “Shall we start with introductions?” she continued cheerfully. “My name is Seraphina. What’s yours?”

  Bile rose in his throat.

  “O-our Goddess, who art in heaven, d-deliver us from the seductions of the coming—”

  “Seriously, you are not going to py along?” She clicked her tongue. “Forget it, I shouldn’t be wasting my time with no-name extras. Just go to sleep, will you?”

  His prayer faltered as he suddenly dropped to his knees, a wave of dizziness crashing over him.

  The woman turned to the weeping Temprs and lowered her voice as if to deliver a sermon.

  “Rejoice, my lost mbs. I offer you a chance of salvation,” she crooned, her voice trickling into his ears like poison. “Listen to me, and listen well. On the night of the full…moon…”

  And then, the world turned bck.