Author: Lurina

201: Shadow of a Shadow (𒌋) - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

I almost wrote my real name by accident, but managed to avoid it. To my surprise, the body even gave Kasua a unique style of handwriting. It was a lot blockier than what I normally did.

"Make sure you all fold them horizontally right down the middle when you're done, if you please," Bahram reminded us as I finished. "We don't want there to be anything to set them apart in the jar."

"Oh, shoot," Phaidime intoned. "I already scrunched mine up!"

Bahram sighed. "Gaizarik, would you mind--"

"Just kidding," Phaidime said, and cackled as if this was remotely funny. "God, you guys are taking this so seriously."

I did as he asked, joining the left and right sides of my slip together and flattening them down. (Do you ever think that the way we talk about 'folding horizontally' versus 'folding vertically' is weird? I mean, the fold ends up having the angle opposite to what the descriptor would imply. Just me? Never mind.)

"I'm glad it'll be straightforward, if naught else," Hildris spoke casually as the quill was passed to her. "If I'm being rather honest, I did come to this hoping for something of a payout, but now that we've all been for half a day, I just want it to be over and done with. I'll always be grateful for how much help Rastag gave me in the early days of my career, but I'll be happy to put all of this behind me."

"The offer I gave Kasua is open to you as well, Hildris," Tuthal said stiffly, sounding conflicted between his desire to avoid conversing with an old flame and his desire for hard cash. "40,000 arda. Walk away with twice what you could reasonably expect."

She chuckled. "I do wonder if you've thought this through, darling. I'm hardly privy to the intimate details of your accounts, but I wonder if it needs to be said that, if too many people took you up on such a thing and your luck still failed you, you might find yourself in rather a tricky spot."

Tuthal clicked his tongue. "I may have suffered some blows to my dignity, but I've a long way left to fall before such a sum would be crippling, woman." He didn't sound as confident as he probably hoped to.

"Be that as it may, I do think I shall decline," she declared with a smile. "Moving on is one thing, but choosing to forgo such a fun gamble out of sheer pragmatism would be rather dull, don't you think?"

He didn't even bother to respond to this, turning to Phaidime as the quill passed to her. "What about you? From what you've said, you'll never get another chance to see a payout like this. What I'm offering could change your life."

She smirked, not even looking up at him. "This is gonna change my life no matter what-- Double wouldn't make much difference. But twenty times more? Don't think I'd be able to live with myself if I knew I could be a genuine millionaire if I hadn't chickened out."

Tuthal shook his head, then moved on once again, this time to Summiri. "I don't think you've got much of a future in the working world without your patron, girl. But you have a head for numbers, I'll give you that. With enough capital to get you off the ground, you could make a living off investing alone. With enough capital."

"Tuth, don't you think it's a little on the nose for you to single out all the girls like this?" Hildris asked, an eyebrow raised.

"What would you have me do? I'm not going to ask fucking Aleth of Atheax over there." (Aleth of Atheax was the protagonist of a classic series of mystery dramas from the First Resurrection; the gimmick was that he had an alternate personality (later revealed to be the spirit of his deceased grandfather) who would do the actual mystery-solving, while he himself was depicted as good-natured if somewhat bumbling. The story had aged poorly by the time I was born due to its extremely strong religious and anti-feminist subtext. I did my Inotian Literature thesis on it in college - it was a whole thing.) "I don't want a paper trail connected to him. I don't even know if he cares about the money! He could be planning to slit our throats in our sleep."

The 'detective' said nothing, merely watching him in attentive silence.

"Please calm down, Tuth," Bahram said weakly.

Tuthal looked back to Summiri, who appeared extremely unhappy with suddenly becoming the focus of the room's attention, having spent most of the dinner eating in awkward silence. "Girl, you know what I'm saying is rational. If you come in close to last, you'll burn through all the money you'll get flogging whatever crap you walk out of here with just setting yourself up in a decent home. You won't have the flexibility to make any moves. But with my capital, that'll change. It'll take you time, perhaps even a century, but you'll amass even the value of the Last Winter under your own power." He narrowed his eyes. "So my offer isn't that you give up on a 1/6 chance for fantastic wealth in favor or middling wealth, like it would be for a normal person. It's that you trade a 5/6 chance of a dead end for the certainty of fantastic wealth in the future. Assuming you're not a fraud, you know I'm right."

I saw Hildris roll her eyes, but though it was kind of a stupid argument if you thought about it for more than a few seconds, I felt a little impressed with how he'd delivered it. I didn't know much about stock trading, but I was pretty sure that in the real world, you weren't guaranteed to succeed at it no matter how big a genius you were.

Summiri was silent for several moments, her posture rigid and her teeth looking like they were clenched behind her lips. Her eyes darted to the side. "fine."

Tuthal's eyebrows raised. "You'll do it?"

"y. yes," she stammered out. "i accept. i'll g-give up my spot if i win f-for 40,000."

He clapped his hands triumphantly, before pointing to her dramatically, looking between each of us in turn. "That's a verbal contract! Everyone take note! Informal but binding, parliamentary charter of finance, section four subdivision sixteen!"

"Wow, you're really excited for a guy who might've just signed away more money than most people could save in a century for nothing," Phaidime commented, sipping from her glass of wine. (How was this woman still coherent? She'd been drinking for almost six hours straight.)

"We'll see, won't we?" Tuthal spoke with a confident smirk. He looked back towards me. "Well, Kasua, that just leaves you. You've had your minute. What do you say?"

I considered. Obviously, we were talking about fake money and none of this actually mattered, but trying to reason it out for the sake of fidelity... Assuming the value was around what Phaidime said - a million arda or a little shy of that, which sounded about right based on my rudimentary understanding of the early 8th century economy - then in strict numerical terms, it was a bad deal. Even accounting for the fact that you'd get the bribe and a non-Last Winter item, you'd only be walking away with about 100,000 arda at most. A 1/6 chance to get the big prize vs 1/10th of the big prize-- A chunk of which you'd keep no matter what, so really it was even less. It stunk.

...but, it was still an alternative to gambling, which based on the description of Kasua as a rationalist I imagined she'd be averse to. Plus, there were externalities that those numbers didn't account for. For example, it had never actually been confirmed that the Last Winter was on the train at all; even if it was part of Rastag's collection, its inclusion in the inheritance was only an assumption. And selling a culturally-important item like that would also be a pain in the ass. There would be legislation around it, taxes, lots of media attention... and a target would be painted on your back the whole time you had it. Even on this train. Especially on this train, where Kasua was investigating a murder she already said mattered more than the money.

"...50,000," Kasua said. "For both myself and Summiri, so it's fair.

"50,000 arda?"

"That's what I said," she told him.

"Done," he answered immediately. "You drive as hard a bargain as I'd expect from Mariya's daughter, but done." He bent down, the quill finally having passed to him, and (presumably) scrawled his own name on the papyrus. He folded it hurriedly and tossed it across the table to Bahram. "Alright, let's do this. Let's get it done before I-- Before we all go mad."

"We haven't even finished our dessert yet, Tuth," Hildris objected.

"I don't care," he said bluntly. "It's souffle, not glaced cream. It can wait a bloody moment."

Bahram shook his head. "I really do feel this isn't the way Rastag would have wanted this done. He wouldn't want us making deals to divvy up his last gift." He looked genuinely quite upset at this point. "I really do grieve what's become of-- Of all of this. Of the friendship we all once shared."

No one seemed to know what to say to that - even Tuthal - so the room briefly descended into silence. After several moments, Bahram let out a deep sigh.

"But you're right," he said with reticent bluntness. "Let's just have it done."

The slips went into the jar. After rolling up his sleeves, Bahram sealed the lid and began to lightly shake it, and despite the mundanity of the method (and more than half the table having either effectively eliminated themselves or given assurances that they didn't even really care about the outcome) the atmosphere grew palpably tense. Everyone - even the detective's - eyes were fixed on the cylinder, while Gaizarik still presided ominously in the background, his posture as perfect as a statue. Even the rattling of the wheels against the track seemed to quiet, the sound of the papyrus shuffling against the metal sharpening to the point of being all encompassing.

When Bahram finally stopped and placed the jar back down, Tuthal looked about ready to burst a blood vessel - his face so red he could have been dying of heatstroke - and Summiri didn't seem much better, presumably consumed by the possibility that she'd thrown away the biggest chance of her lifetime. Even Hildris looked somewhat tense; Phaidime (suspicious) and the detective were the only ones who appeared calm.

The lid turned. Bahram, with the delicacy with which one might defuse a bomb, turned his head upwards and reached inside, pulling up a single piece of parchment. He glanced at it only for the briefest of moments, then turned it around for the rest of us to see. In elegant script, it read:

'Tuthal Tuthaliyasun'.

The reaction of the man in question was delayed. For a moment, he seemed to seize up in pure shock, his eyes going wide. Then-- As if a spring had come loose, he suddenly leapt from his seat, thrusting a fist through the air so quickly and with so little control it looked more like a spasm. "YES!" he screamed. "FUCK YES! AHHHH!"

No one else looked particularly pleased with this outcome. Hildris sighed, the detective narrowed his eyes, Bahram looked like he'd just watched someone piss on a cherished childhood book. Even Summiri, who by all rights should have been vindicated by this development, could only manage a resigned contempt.

"Sit down, Tuth," Bahram said tiredly.

The man was still heaving with animalistic excitement and wearing a huge grim, but embarrassment seemed to reach him. His lips twitched, and his body withdrew, a hand rising to his mouth. "Sorry, I... sorry." He composed himself, patting himself down and lowering himself back down to the chair. "T-That was undignified of me. Still though! Thank fucking God. That's-- Thank fucking god, you know?" He laughed with manic excitement. It was an excellent performance.

I wondered if this event was scripted. It really did feel like an injustice, to see the wealthiest person here get exactly what he wanted and act so un-self aware in triumph about it. It was so annoying it was a little too perfect.

"...well, as I said, it is what it is," Hildris eventually spoke neutrally. "Congratulations, Tuthal."

"I-- Thank you, Hildris!" His smile could have split a melon. "I guess I still have the luck of the devil even after all these years, eh?!"

"Indeed." She began pouring herself a fresh glass of wine. "I do hope you'll be keeping your word in spite of this development, though."

"Wha..." He looked confused for a moment, but quickly understood. "Don't be absurd-- Of course I'm going to keep my word. My family is one of honor dating back to the Imperial Era! I wouldn't betray that for such a petty reason." He pointed to Summiri and I respectively. "I should be congratulating you girls, in fact! You made out perfectly from this. We'll put it in writing later, even." He laughed a schoolboy's laugh, though this quickly tapered off as he seemed to realize something. "Though-- You don't mind waiting until after I've sold the bloody thing, do you? That would be a lot easier for me."

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"I don't mind a few month's delay," Kasua said, to which Summiri nodded along stiffly. She would absolutely not commit to waiting until he'd 'sold the painting'.

"We'll hash it out later, I'm sure," he said, making a dismissive gesture. "God, though, that's such a load off my mind. Hey-- Why don't we get some better drinks out here, really turn this into a proper party?" He looked towards Gaizarik. "You must have some champagne in the back or something, right?"

"Tuthal," Bahram said slowly. He wasn't even 'Tuth' any more. (He was so dead. The flags at this point were coming in like hail.) "We need to draw the rest of the names."

"Oh! Oh, right, of course." He rolled his hand out. "By all means, go ahead."

And so, one by one - the suspense now having fizzled away almost to nothing - the rest of the order was determined. The final result, save for the last, went: Tuthal, Summiri, Noah, Kasua, Hildris. In other words, pretty close to the exact inverse of who was (at least superficially) most deserving.

Oddly, I noticed that a lot of ink was getting on Bahram's fingers - more after each and every drawing, in fact. We were writing on papyrus (which was sort of odd, now that I considered it-- Initially I'd dismissed as some historical quirk, but even before replication made vellum mass-producible, it should have only been the custom in Ysara and Mekhi to use it for everyday writing), which didn't take to the stuff quite as quickly as other materials, but it was still rather messy.

"I'm sorry, Hildris," Tuthal said, finally experiencing a discernible percentile of the correct amount of shame.

"Oh, be quiet, darling," she intoned. "There are plenty of things in that collection worth a lot of money. It's not as if I'll be walking away empty handed."

"Still, it isn't right, the way this is being done. You did so much for him over the years. Handling it this way-- It really is crude."

I had Kasua scowl softly at him. He had so little shame; it was hilarious.

Bahram, who looked like he was seeing the end of all things, reached into the jar one last time to pull out the writ that would obviously read 'Phaidime'. But as he unfurled it, his eyes widened, and he frowned.

"...is something the matter, mister Hasallsun?" I asked.

He pursed his lips. Then, in lieu of answering, flipped the papyrus around. It read:

'Tuthal Tuthaliyasun'.

"What the hell?" Tuthal blurted out.

"Oh dear." Hildris raised a hand to her mouth. "Did you cheat, darling?"

"Wh-- No, I didn't cheat!" He looked flustered. "How would I have even done that?"

"You could have done something when you inspected the jar," it instantly occurred to me. "Stuck a slip from the inside of your sleeve to the top of the lid while pretending to be feeling around for secret compartments."

"T-That's ridiculous," he said, though seemed rattled by the plausibility of the suggestion. "And even if I did that, there were only six slips in there. I couldn't have made another disappear."

"g-glue." Summiri interjected suddenly. "you-- left glue. on the top."

"Oh for fuck's sa-- How would that even work? It's not like I could know which would get stuck." He turned. "Bahram, just let them look at the thing too. It's emptied now anyway, let them see for themselves."

"I... alright," he agreed hesitantly.

The jar was passed around starting with Hildris, and everyone except for Phaidime and Tuthal performed at least a cursory examination of it, including the detective, who spent so long poking his hand around the edges that the latter started grinding his teeth. Of course, when it was my turn, I failed to find anything. Nothing felt sticky, no part of it was hollow. It was an ordinary jar.

"See? There's nothing I could have done," Tuthal declared. "It's not even my handwriting on there."

This was true. I'd seen his writing when he'd pulled out the contract earlier in the night, and while the first slip had matched, this second one most definitely did not.

"What might've happened, then?" Hildris asked.

"I mean, obviously it's got to have been her, right?" He gestured to Phaidime accusatorily. "Her name is the only one missing, and she hasn't said a damn thing about this so far." He turned in her direction. "Well, woman? Did you write my name on your slip?"

"What? Noooo!" She giggled to herself. "Why would I even do that?"

"She's drunk," Tuthal concluded instantly.

"I'm fine," she protested mirthfully. (Maybe my assessment earlier had been a little off the mark.)

"She's pissed off her head. She probably doesn't even realize this is about real money." He sighed hoarsely. "Just put her at the bottom of the list and be done with it, Bahram."

He looked doubtful. "I... don't know, is that fair? Rastag's will didn't stipulate what's to be done if there's any, er, confusion..."

"Maybe we ought to have a do-over!" Hildris suggested cheekily.

"We can't just do a do-over," Tuthal stated derisively. "Bahram, even if she wrote my name instead for some godforsaken reason, we still pulled it last. So she's last. That's just the result."

"How are you so sure she wrote it, eh?" the detective asked.

"Oh, now you're fucking talking? After just sitting there through all the rest of this without so much as a single word?" He looked at the other man scornfully. "I already said, it's not my handwriting! And everyone else's names were in there!"

Despite this argument, Bahram still looked very uncertain indeed. Phaidime continued to laugh to herself, either oblivious or indifferent to the discussion going on around her.

"...I do think we ought to just leave it at that, Bahram," Hildris said, her tone quite serious for her. "If we meddle with anything further, it'll just create even more ambiguity."

He sighed unhappily. "Even if that's so, she's clearly in no condition to choose an item rationally."

"So what if she is?" Tuthal said. "She's the last on the list, it's not like she's in competition with anyone else at this point. We could even go in with her and help, or put her choice off until the morning, if needs must."

"I... suppose..."

"And look, if it'll put you at ease, I'm sure I can set up a little pension for her on top of whatever she picks out. She's Rastag's sister-- Whatever my feelings about the man, he was still one of my people. I'm not going to just let her live in squalor."

Bahram turned away from the table. "What do you think, Gaizarik?"

"...when conveying his instructions to me, I believe the master's wording, in specific, was that the items were to be 'distributed according to the order in which the names are withdrawn from the receptacle,'" he said, his tone as professional as ever. "I never knew him as a man who would not convey his designs literally. Ergo, my judgement would be that, rather than it concerning miss Mithraiosduttar, master Tuthaliyasun should simply take two items."

Hildris snorted. "Two items!"

"that... that's not fair," Summiri said weakly.

"I feel the same way," Bahram spoke, suddenly looking like he regretted even asking the man for his opinion. "He said in the letter that it was just to determine the order of the distribution. I can't ever imagine that he'd want anyone to leave empty-handed."

Tuthal was silent for a conspicuously long moment, probably weighing how much he could hope to get away with, but eventually nodded. "I agree. Again, I've no desire to deprive her of her fair share for a paltry amount of personal gain. I'm not some animal."

"Be that as it may, that is my interpretation of his intentions," Gaizarik stated. "I do not believe we should defy the will of the master, now that he is not here to argue his case."

Bahram's face flushed, and I wondered who actually had the authority to make the decision here. He was center-stage in all this, but Gaizarik was the one who actually worked for Rastag and was running the train. If the former tried to put his foot down, what exactly would happen?

Hildris sipped from her wine. "Perhaps we might kill two birds with one stone," she suggested. "Phaidime may be too drunk to select an item--"

"I'm not drunk!" she protested. She sounded drunk, but...

"--and Tuthal, according to a strict interpretation of Rastag's instructions, has to take her place." She inclined her head. "It seems that the easiest way to resolve this would simply be to have him choose an item for her-- Supposing we can take him at his word when he says he has her interests at heart."

"Oh... I suppose I could do that," he said, hesitant. He glanced at her for a moment, but then seemed to grow more confident. "I mean, obviously I was prepared for the eventuality that I wouldn't be the one to claim the Last Winter, and researched all of the other major items. I'm relatively confident I could rank them by their worth, roughly."

"And you'd-- You'd hand whatever you chose over to her?" Bahram asked.

"Of course," Tuthal affirmed. "I'll swear it, even."

He still looked uneasy. "What... do you think about this, Phaidime? Would this be acceptable to you?"

"Sure!" She said, tipping her glass. "As long as I get the money, I don't give a shit."

"...right." Bahram rubbed his brow, sighing in resignation. "Well... then perhaps it would be for the best, then. If it would get everyone what they wanted, without going against Rastag's desires."

The table fell into a strange silence for a moment, not quite awkward, but... something else. Tuthal looked strangely uneasy all of a sudden, Hildris was looking towards the window, and Summiri was even tenser than normal. It felt, palpably, like I was missing something.

"...hold on," I spoke up. "Isn't it a little dangerous to just be accepting this and going ahead with things?" I squinted, looking across the table. "We still don't even know how two of the same name ended up in the jar at all. Phaidime denied it."

Tuthal snorted. "Come on, Kasua, you heard how she said it. You can't say that was a serious denial."

"I seriously--" She snorted, unable to hold back laughter. "I seriously didn't! Goodness gracious, this is crazy."

"You said it yourself," I told him. "She's inebriated. We can't make judgements of her intent based on tone alone." I folded my arms. "And besides-- Why would she do something like that, even as a drunken joke? It's not just illogical, there's no sense to it on any level."

"Interesting questions, for certain," the detective growled skeptically, stroking his mustache. (Did I mention he had a mustache? I just figured you'd assume that in tandem with the rest of the stereotypes, I think.) He was even stealing my valor when I was just speculating.

"I... must admit I would be a lot more comfortable if there was a straight answer to this whole affair too, Kassie," Bahram mumbled. "But-- What else can we do? Hildris is right. Meddling further would just create further doubt, and the whole process was right in the open."

What I wanted to do - what seemed like the obvious weak link yet to face interrogation - was to challenge Bahram. As the one who has presided over the entire affair, he was best-placed to fuck with the drawing without there even needing any sort of trick with the jar. But... I had to admit, it was hard to imagine how it would have been done. We'd seen him rather deliberately place them in one at a time. He'd rolled up his sleeves, so there was no possibility of him inserting an extra one there. They'd been pulled out one at a time in a way where it would be impossible to disguise the removal of an extra slip, and the jar had been empty when we'd inspected it all after the fact.

...no, wait.

There had been six slips, all folded the same way.

We'd placed them all in directly after writing on them, in plain view in everyone else.

Tuthal had inspected the jar before we'd started... and after the drawing, it had been passed around for another inspection.

But no, wait... they'd have to be... And there'd need to be some way to--

But then why would they...?

I clicked my tongue, a small smirk rising to my lips.

There was a way they could have rigged it, after all. They wouldn't have been able to win the contest. But they could have controlled which of the slips was drawn last.

But that just left an even bigger question.

"Well," Hildris said, her voice barely audible only the rushing air. "At least it's not raining."

"What?" I yelled.

"I said at least it's not raining, darling," she repeated.

"Oh." I glanced upwards. "...yeah. I guess not."

The three of us were out in the middle carriage now; by 'the three' I mean myself, Hildris, and Phaidime, who was currently some distance away, leaning against the railing and letting the wind run through her hair, a drink still in her hand. At this point night had fallen fully, and clouds had covered the sky, making it impossible to discern the features of the steppe even by the light of the Lesser Lamp.

It felt a bit cheap, to me. Convenient bad weather was a common trope in lazy whodunnits.

After we'd finished dinner, Bahram had explained how this was going to go. According to Rastag's will, we had to all enter the front carriage alone, one at a time, to choose and collect our gifts. Gaizarik would act as the doorman, unlocking it when we entered and locking it again - however briefly - when we left, as well as performing a pat-down at both points. Only after this process was fully complete would the next person be allowed to proceed, on and on until the list was exhausted.

Ostensibly, this was to make absolutely sure there could be no funny business in terms of people taking more than one item or influencing one another's decisions, but I knew a contrived locked room setup when I saw one. I expected the first murder, or at least the first apparent murder, to happen very soon.

I'd accepted that there was likely nothing I could do to derail this, but when Hildris had gone out for a smoke break, I'd decided in a petty gesture of metanarrative defiance to join her-- Though I'd also wanted to think for a bit, which Kasua probably would too. Plus, if there were any shenanigans with the train's structure coming up, this would be the best place to discern them.

Honestly, at this point, I was beyond ready for things to get to the point. It would be getting late on the outside too, and I was starting to feel a little weary. I craved the little bed in Ptolema's living room.

We'd only been out here for a few minutes when, suddenly, Tuthal emerged from the dining car. Though he carried something shaped like a painting wrapped under his arm, he wore an unusually stressed expression, his sweat glistening in the light from the little lamps illuminating the navigation mirrors. As soon as he arrived, he bee-lined for Hildris.

"Hildy," he said quickly, "we need to talk."

She frowned, lowering her long cigarette. "Darling, what are you--"

"Now," he hissed, and took her by the arm suddenly. He dashed towards the rest car, pulling her with him.

"Ohoh," Phaidime said, amused. "Looks like trouble in paradise!"

I narrowed my eyes, but otherwise didn't react. Even if it was all still guesswork at this point, I'd had a hunch something like this might happen. I was starting to suspect the kind of game that might be being played behind the scenes.

With Tuthal done, Summiri would be next, and then the detective. I'd probably be up in about 10-15 minutes, assuming nothing happened. We'd have to see on that count.

About a minute after the two of them had left, Phaidime drifted over to me, her skirt billowing in the winds. "You've got the look of a girl who's figured something out," she said with a smile.

I blinked. Kasua wouldn't show her hand until she was certain. "No. I'm just thinking."

Phaidime chuckled. "Aren't we all, aren't we all. Hey, how do you think they even got this train here, with these goofy wings sticking out like a T-pose? Like, it's fine for a single-rail line like this in the middle of nowhere, but anywhere with a parallel line - or even just, y'know, architecture - they'd be clipped off in a second. So how did they even get it down here, do you think?"

"I don't know," I told her honestly. "I don't know trains."

"Guess you're not the only one!" She smiled wistfully and sipped her drink, gazing out at the almost invisible landscape. "Wow. Wow wow wow."

I frowned skeptically at her. "You don't seem drunk."

"I'm high on life," she replied whimsically. "Hey-- Look. It's another of those bonfire things."

I squinted. I'd missed it, but sure enough, she was right. Far ahead, there was a single star of light on the plain, the smoke cresting around it illuminated like a halo. A small god blooming out of the earth.

"Oh," I said. "So there is."

"It's the little details that make something beautiful," she mused.. "Shame it's all fake like everything else, though."

I blinked. Wait--

"So, what do you think's really going on?"

"Pardon me?" I asked. "Going on with what?"

"Come on. Don't be coy." She looked to me, lowering her brow slightly, her long hair streaking over her face. "With the mystery."

"...what sort of mystery are you talking about?" Kasua inquired. "Do you mean what happened with the jar? I suppose I noticed--"

"Really, it's okay," she reassured me, slipping a little closer, such that she didn't even need to raise her voice. "It's a one-person operation most of the time, and they'll be focused on the front carriage right now. And nobody takes this low-level stuff too seriously. They won't hear us."

"I..." my voice trailed off.

"Hey, I'm gonna go out on a limb here."

She leaned in even closer, to the point that I could see the texture of her wrinkles.

"You're Utsushikome of Fusai," she asked, "right?"