Chapter 1274: Chapter 1274

"Chocolate, you saw that just now, didn't you?"

After wandering the area for a long time without being able to re-enter that dilapidated version of Nolan, Jenkins muttered to himself, uncertain. To his surprise, the cat actually nodded.

"Right. It seems you're smart enough to understand me."

He tapped his own head, then gently ruffled the fur on the cat's.

"If Chocolate saw that old part of the city too, then the chances of it being a hallucination are even slimmer. But what in the world was it?"

With time to spare before lunch, Jenkins paid visits to both the old elf in the city center and Miss Audrey in the foggy outskirts, recounting his strange encounter to each of them.

But neither the elf's vast experience nor Miss Audrey's divination could provide a clear answer. Audrey even sustained a minor injury during her attempt, and out of caution, Jenkins insisted she stop.

"I'll handle this myself," he told them. "Just be careful when you're out and about in the city for now."

He cautioned both the elf and the diviner before returning to Ruen, his mood heavy with frustration.

Miss Capet's name had indeed appeared among the clues left by Miss Brolignans. When Alexia asked what he planned to do, Jenkins said he would handle it upon his return to Nolan. Both the princess and her teacher let out a noticeable sigh of relief.

Regarding the vision of the city, Alexia was as stumped as he was. But since he couldn't replicate the experience no matter how hard he tried, she reasoned it must have been a rare, random occurrence.

"You'll have to be careful when you go back to Nolan,"

Alexia cautioned, a hint of worry in her voice. In her experience, whenever Jenkins ran into trouble in Nolan, it was never a small matter.

Her own day had been quite fruitful. While rummaging through old tomes in the Stuart royal library, she'd stumbled upon several books long banned by the Orthodox Church. Within them, she had found accounts of the mad poet. Now, both she and Jenkins were burning to know where the poet had acquired that bizarre machine.

"In this prayer book, which is filled with delirious ravings, the fourth section of the third chapter describes the mad poet's end... or at least, that's one interpretation of the details. Of course, it could all just be the wild fantasies of a lunatic."

Alexia was holding the library's original copy, a handwritten manuscript. She judged the ink to be animal blood, though so many years had passed that she couldn't identify the species.

The book was a muddle of the author's own fantasies and deranged tales transcribed from other forbidden texts. It even included a short passage from A-09-1-7300, the "Book of the Dead," though this did little to enhance its actual value.

In the passage Alexia indicated, Jenkins managed to piece together the story of the mad poet's demise from the nearly illegible script and a narrative timeline that jumped backward and forward.

The tale was a grim cliché: a mad poet who lured children from villages and towns to their deaths in the river with the music of his flute. One day, he encountered another traveler, an outsider like himself. The story never gave the traveler's name, only detailing the bizarre and crazed methods the poet used against him.

Eventually, the traveler killed the mad poet. The enraged villagers hung his corpse from the village flagpole for seven days. Throughout those seven days, a series of calamities befell them—locusts, torrential rains, fires, plagues. After a week, unable to bear it any longer, the villagers abandoned the bodies of their loved ones and, with the traveler's help, fled the home they had known for generations.

All that remained was the body of the mad poet, swaying from the flagpole, as black crows circled overhead, silent witnesses to the desolation.

"Truly insane... Are there any other records? I'm more interested in what happened before the poet's death—specifically, how he got his hands on that machine."

"That was during the Fifteenth Epoch, thousands of years ago," Alexia retorted. "It took me three days just to find this one clue about him. Did you really expect me to unearth everything you want to know in another three?"

Alexia asked, a note of exasperation in her voice. Jenkins quickly apologized, realizing he couldn't rush this sort of thing.

Dolores was preoccupied with matters of the throne and the treasury, while Alexia was buried under a mountain of research. It left Jenkins, the only one without any official business, feeling like a bit of a freeloader. Later that afternoon, Dolores mentioned that the date for the financial lecture she'd invited him to give was set, finally giving him something to do.

But he finished writing the speech in just an hour and a half, leaving him idle once more.

"Might as well go back to Nolan," he thought. "Maybe I'll run into whatever that was this morning again."

So, at three in the afternoon, he stepped out of his wardrobe back in Nolan. Cradling his cat, he peeked out the window. The street was empty, and Miss Silver Flute next door was resting in her bedroom. He decided to visit the professor again to discuss the stone slate.

The professor had no classes that day and was busy writing a paper at home. When Jenkins knocked for the third time, the professor looked swamped, so Jenkins apologized for the interruption and decided not to go in.

"I recently made a new acquaintance, an Enchanter," the professor said. "She has done extensive research on strange artifacts one and is an expert in ancient lore. She might have some deep insight into the 'Month of Flowing Fire' you mentioned. Perhaps you could consult her. But remember to disguise yourself—she's an unregistered Enchanter."

The friend the professor mentioned went by the moniker "Magic Miss." It was no coincidence; this was the very same woman Jenkins already knew.

Since he had nothing better to do, Jenkins decided to follow the professor's directions to a place where Magic Miss was likely to be found. Apparently, the professor and Magic Miss had bonded over their shared interest in elven history, so she had given him a way to contact her.

It was a far more reliable method than the fake address Jenkins had, as the professor knew she could be found in a particular building in the city on any given weekday afternoon.

The address led him to a secluded and quiet, affluent district in the eastern part of the city. Jenkins looked up at the small, five-story building, wondering if it was tall enough to be called a tower.

The buildings here were few and far between. After turning off a smaller lane, he found the scattered structures were separated by wide gaps of land. It felt like he was already nearing the city's outskirts.

Someone answered his knock almost immediately. As expected, it was an unfamiliar face—one of Magic Miss's disguises. Jenkins had seen her true face before.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asked.

Jenkins paused, wondering if he had the wrong address. The woman, however, instantly realized he wasn't a regular client. Then her eyes fell on the remarkably alert-looking cat perched on his shoulder.

"Oh, it's Mr. Candle," she said, her tone changing. "Please, come in. I was expecting the client who made an appointment last week."

"This is your place of business?"

Jenkins followed her inside. The ground floor was cluttered with all manner of strange objects: a cracked crystal ball, defaced tarot cards, and feathers from some unidentifiable bird.

Glancing up, he could see all the way to the ceiling five stories above. The upper floors were built around a central atrium, with circular corridors connecting the rooms on each level. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel•fire.net

The space was dimly lit, all the curtains drawn. The only illumination came from a crystal chandelier that hung from the high ceiling, level with the third floor. Jenkins couldn't tell what kind of candles Magic Miss was using, but they cast a dim, spectral blue light.

"Yes," she confirmed. "I offer consultations and services in the mystical arts. This is my primary business."

"Isn't your main business that detective agency downtown?"

Jenkins grumbled to himself, following her into a ground-floor office. Compared to the deliberately mystifying decor of the main hall, this room was refreshingly normal.

"I won't bother asking how you found me; people like you are always resourceful. I'm not always here, you know. I only open my doors from three to five in the afternoon, Monday through Saturday. Scarcity adds to the mystique, after all... But enough of that. Let's get down to business, Mr. Candle. Why would a busy man such as yourself come looking for me?"

She took a seat behind a wide desk, gesturing for Jenkins to take the comfortable armchair opposite.

"I'm hardly a busy man. In fact, I've had quite a bit of free time lately. As for why I'm here... it's about this."

As he spoke, he reached behind his back. After a three-second pause, he produced a stone slate about the size of a book.

Magic Miss tilted her head slightly, unable to tell where he had pulled it from.

"It seems to be carved from ordinary stone, but the patterns on the surface suggest otherwise. I've already had someone translate these cat-paw-like engravings. They mean 'Poem' and 'Disaster.'"

"Oh? That sounds vaguely familiar,"

Magic Miss murmured, taking the heavy slab from his hands. She wore no gloves, tracing the five circular indentations with the pads of her fingers.

"Ah, so it's this," she said, recognition dawning.

"You know what it is?"

the woman answered confidently, then noticed the deep skepticism on Jenkins's face.

Jenkins's skepticism was understandable. After all, even the Sage's Church had been unable to identify the object, and profoundly knowledgeable people like Alexia and Miss Audrey had been stumped. For Magic Miss to have an answer after a single glance and touch seemed too good to be true.

"This is the 'Misfortune Poem,' and I'd wager you won't find anyone on the entire West Coast who knows more about it than I do. It's connected to a well-kept secret within my faith. Aside from my fellow believers, your only other chance of finding information would be to try your luck at the grand library in Bel Diran—assuming you could even get inside."

"Right..." Jenkins said slowly. "So, what is it?"

Jenkins asked, still hesitant.

Magic Miss didn't answer directly. She simply shook her head and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together in his direction.

"We're friends, so I can give you a very generous discount."