Chapter 70 (1/2)

Part 1

”I'm telling you Dormouse; I'm not sick, just tired.”

Despite my protests, my dear assistant continued hold her palm against my forehead in search of any sign of a fever. The placeholders in the classroom were giving us odd looks (I liked it better when they ignored our shenanigans, but I don't think reversing their development was possible, or ethical for that matter), so I gently removed her hand from my head. I honestly didn't know what I found weirder: the fact that Judy could tell that I was out of it against my best efforts to appear normal, or that she waited until lunch-break to raise a fuss about it.

”Couldn't sleep?” came the well-meaning question from Josh sitting behind his desk, though considering he also had giant bags under his eyes, he might have only tried to avert attention. As such, it was only fair that I threw the ball back into his court.

”Nah, I slept exactly as much as usual,” I opened with a half-truth, followed up by, ”Speaking of which, you look pretty out of it yourself. Did you stay up all night yesterday?”

”Ah, yeah. I kinda got fixated on finishing a quest in a game, and before I knew it, it was past midnight.”

Oh? Now would you look at that? No awkward shuffling, no averted eyes, just a straightforward answer. It was almost like he expected me to ask that very question and made preparations in advance. In other words, the plot thickens.

It was at this point that I sent a sneaky glance at the class rep standing a little apart from the rest of us. In return, she gave me an 'I know you know' kind of look, to which I responded with a 'I know you know that I know' smirk, which she answered with a 'I know you know that I know you know' flavored raised eyebrow, and while I was sure we could continue this until the cows came home, I figured this was good enough.

”Game? What game?” Elly asked out of pure curiosity, much to my friend's well-disguised chagrin.

”It's... an RPG. You probably never heard of it,” Josh deflected her with a smile.

”We can talk over the details during lunch,” Judy urged us along, but I had no choice but to disappoint her.

”You do that. I have something to discuss with the class rep first.”

Once I declared my intentions, the two of us spent several seconds communicating only using our eyebrows, and once we cleared things up (I hoped), my dear assistant sharply nodded in agreement.

”All right then. We'll go ahead. Don't dally for too long.”

”Hold on for just a second!” The expression on Josh's face somehow appeared even more gravely wronged than his voice implied, and he followed his interruption up with the question, ”If Leo stays behind, who's going to pay for my lunch?”

”Oh, shaddup ya muncha'!” Angie exclaimed in an undecipherable fake accent. I was sure it was another one of their esoteric inside-jokes that I simply had no chance of understanding due to not growing up with the two of them. Maybe for the best, I reckoned.

Anyhow, she put her hands onto Josh's shoulders and began to push her childhood pal out of the classroom while telling him, thankfully without the accent, ”For once you can lower yourself to us lowly mortals and eat a ticket menu like the rest of us! Trust me, you'll survive!”

”Ow, wait! This was just kidding! Leo, help!”

Even if I wanted to (which I didn't), I couldn't aid my friend, as he was already out in the hallway and being pushed even further away. My girlfriends shared an uncertain look at the pair's expense, so I urged them to follow after the two, and they soon did so, though not before Judy made me promise that I would catch up with them as soon as possible. That left me alone with the suspicious class rep. Well, her, and all the placeholders still paying an unnecessary amount of attention to us.

”Should we go somewhere more secluded?” I proposed, and she nodded without any delay.

For a moment I almost wondered where we should head, but by the looks of it the class rep already had a destination in mind. I simply followed her lead, and in a few short minutes later we were already inside the library. It's been ages since the last time I've been here (subjectively speaking, objectively it's been less than three months), but the place was just as unnecessarily spacious and fancy as I remembered. At first I thought we would sit by one of the desk at the back, but the class rep went the extra mile to find the most secluded corner behind the rows of bookshelves on the first floor before she came to a halt.

”Were you spying on us last night?”

Straight to the point, eh? It was a little surprising, but I had to give it to her; it made things much easier than spending who knows how long dancing around the topic.

”I wasn't exactly 'spying' on you per se, but yes, I have noticed that were up to something,” I corrected her. ”Something about sneaking into a building with Josh and Mike, if I'm not mistaken.”

The moment those words left my mouth, Ammy's shoulders immediately slouched in defeat. It only lasted for a moment though, as right after that she glanced around the empty corner, probably just to be sure, before she gestured for me to lean closer.

”Listen, Leo.” Her whispers were barely audible, so I had to lean even closer. She looked a little uncomfortable by my invasion of her personal space, but hey, she was the one who wanted to do this double-secretly. Once she collected herself, she took a deep breath, looked me in the eye, and told me, ”Please don't get involved.”

”Okay.” My answer apparently took her aback, so I told her, ”I am really busy already, so if it's your personal business, I have no reason to stick my nose into it.”

”Erm… Yes, it is personal.” She kept eyeing me as if she was expecting a theatrical 'However!' from me, but when I remained silent, she tentatively asked, ”How much did you see?”

”Practically nothing,” I admitted without any reservations. ”As I said, I was insanely busy last night, so I didn't have the time to pay attention to whatever you guys were doing.”

”All night? What were you doing?”

”Nuh-uh, class rep,” I chided her as I waved my finger in front of her face. ”I don't ask about your business, you don't ask about mine. It's common courtesy. All I say is that it involved some negotiations, waiting for someone to sober up, and then some more negotiations.”

”I… see.”

With this, the conversation came to a natural halt, but there was at least one last thing I was curious about, so I softly cleared my throat.

”So, details aside, is the thing that you guys were doing dangerous? Say, on a ten point scale.”

Ammy hesitated for a second, but instead of giving me a straightforward answer, she responded with, ”I don't have a frame of reference, so I can't answer that.”

”Ooookay then, how about this: One is taking a candy from a baby, ten is taking a certain key from a certain underground office.”

My clarification prompted her to fall silent for several seconds while she contemplated, culminating in a single word.

”Five.”

”That… is actually a bit higher than I expected,” I admitted, but then I also shrugged my shoulder and added, ”Oh well. If you need help, you know where to find me. Either way, be careful.”

”I will be. You should just focus on recovery.”

”I try, but honestly, it's not something I can just recover from on my own. I appreciate the sentiment all the same,” I told her with a reassuring smile, yet for some reason it only made her frown deepen. ”Don't worry, I actually have multiple experts lined up to help me. One of them surely can fix my hand.”

I wanted to punctuate my words with a thumbs up, but my fingers refused to play along, so in the end I had to use my left hand to bend my thumb into position. That… might have done more harm to my point than good, but there was no sense crying over spilled milk.

”I understand.”

”Good.” I opened and closed my right hand at this point, but since she still looked a little uncertain, I decided to add, ”Anyhow, if it's something I can help with even in my current condition, don't be afraid to ask.”

I figured we would be leaving it at that, but then in a sudden one-eighty-turn she threw an unexpected question at me.

”In that case… can I ask you a favor?”

”Wait, is it related to the conversation we were just having, or a separate favor?”

”The former,” she admitted, making me even more baffled by this turn of events. ”There is a… box I need you to hide.”

”A box,” I repeated after her, and she reaffirmed it with a nod.

”I need you to put it somewhere safe, and more importantly, a place I wouldn't know about.” I probably looked quite confused at the moment, as she also told me, ”It is in case 'someone' starts suspecting me. I originally wanted to leave it with Michael, but I don't want to endanger him. He already helped more than he really needed to.”

”And don't forget that he is technically an agent and he might leak it to the Celestial Information Network,” I pointed out, even if only half-seriously, yet she took quite an offense to my words.

”He wouldn't do that!”

Seeking how vehemently she was glaring at me, I had no choice but to backpedal a little.

”… On second thought, no, he probably wouldn't,” I agreed with her, and after one more huff, she returned to the previous conversation.

”As I was saying, I need to get rid of this 'box', but I can't destroy its contents. I can't give it to Josh or Michael either, and I can't hide it myself. Unlike me, you cannot be interrogated, so it would be safer in your hands.”

”Wait, what do you mean 'I cannot be interrogated'?”

The class rep gave me a look that said she couldn't decide whether I was serious or not, but when she finally realized I was sincere, she let out a long sigh and lazily readjusted her glasses.

”I don't know what you did to grandfather, but he apparently doesn't want anything to do with you. So long as you are not directly implicated, he would rather swallow the indignity than to deal with you again. If I didn't know him better, I would almost think he was afraid of you.”

”Oh, please. I'm not that scary,” I jested, but Ammy remained entirely serious, so I left it at that.

”If you do this for me, then even if I get interrogated, I can say under oath that I don't know where the hom— I mean, the contents of the box are.”

”Is that so?” At first I wanted to question what kind of incompetent interrogator would leave things at that, but then I remembered my own experience with Onikiri's apparent truth-detector capabilities and how easy it was to circumvent them, and I figured it might not be such a far-fetched idea after all. ”If that's all, then I suppose I could accommodate you. How about I pick it up after school today?”

”Sounds good to me. Just promise me you handle it with care, and that you don't get involved any further.”

I wanted to point out that hiding incriminating evidence was getting about as far involved as possible short of doing the actual deed, whatever that was, but I refrained from doing so in favor of another idea that just popped into my head.

”Can I ask you a favor in return?” She immediately nodded, so I told her, ”Do you have any books on enchantments?”

”You mean technical manuals, or theoretical works?” she asked back, and while I was tempted to answer with a cheeky 'Yes', it was probably more productive to explain myself in detail.

”Anything you can give me. The symposium for the Artificers is coming up soon, and I was invited as a guest speaker. The problem is, I'm completely clueless of the jargon and how enchanting is normally done by normal people under normal circumstances. In other words, I'd like to do the absolute minimum research on the topic so that I wouldn't sound like an utter simpleton.”

There was an uncomfortably long beat of silence after I finished my explanation. In fact, I was just about to break it myself, but before I could do so, Ammy blurted out an incredulous, ”You were invited to the symposium.”

”Yeah, Gowan asked me to attend. Why, is it a big deal?”

For a moment Ammy opened her mouth wide in preparation of a retort, but then she just as quickly closed it with an audible clack of teeth and she soon buried her face in her hand.

”Yes, Leo. It's a 'big deal',” she finally told me, her voice suspiciously sounding like she was squeezing her words through her teeth.

”Really? Well, all the more reason why I should do some homework beforehand,” I responded in a chipper voice. She didn't seem to appreciate it. Oh well, tough crowds happen.

”You know,” she told me once she removed her hand from her forehead, ”Sometimes I wonder if you are doing this just to mess with the heads of everyone around you.”

I didn't know what she meant by that, but that never stopped me from responding.

”I'll leave it up to your imagination. So, do you have those books?”

”Not yet, but I will borrow some from the School library.” I very nearly pointed out that we were already here, but then I realized she said the word with a capital 'S', so I swallowed my words. ”Where should we meet to conduct the exchange?”

”I'll just hop over to your place,” I said without thinking.

”Very well. I'll make sure to wear the Magiformer.”

I was once again stumped for a moment, but then I recalled that my cover story said I could only Phase over to enchanted anchor objects. Sheesh, keeping all of these different cover stories in mind was starting to be a bit of a hassle…

”You do that. Have we discussed everything we wanted?”

”I think so,” she told me, so I immediately took half a step back.

”Great. In that case, we should head to the cafeteria before the rumor mill starts moving.”

Ammy agreed and the two of us started walking in silence. That didn't last long though, as there was one last question I couldn't get out of my head.

”So, class rep? Is getting invited to this symposium thing really that big of a deal?”

She sent me one last sharp glance in response, and after holding my gaze for a while, she suddenly slouched her shoulders and muttered something about 'achievements of ignorance'. That didn't sound good.

”Oookay then. I guess I better ask Judy to help me study beforehand.”

”Yes, you better,” the class rep agreed, and with that, we left the school library behind, with my stomach suddenly feeling heavier than when I entered.

Part 2

When looking out the second-floor window, I had no choice but to admit that the cityscape of Timaeus was quite majestic. From this vantage point I could see the high-rise buildings of the central district, the tidy rows of houses in the residential area, and if I strained my eyes a little, I could even catch a glimpse of sunlight reflecting on the water of the docks. If I were to get up from my desk and poked my head out, I was sure I could even see the foot of the mountain in the middle of the island. All in all, the view put me in a very solemn, introspective mood. For about five seconds.

”Well, that's enough of that,” I whispered in the empty classroom, and after stretching my arms a bit, I took a deep breath and decided to put my free time to good use. Today's last lesson was PE, and since I still had an exemption, I decided to stay in our homeroom instead of watching the others from the sideline. I had more than one reason for that, but let's not focus on that detail yet.

Once I felt decently comfortable in my seat and made sure there was nobody in the vicinity, I closed my eyes and began to make my customary rounds on my various marks using Far Sight. I was very tempted to start with the rest of the gang first, but I managed to restrain the urge. I held back until now, so waiting just a little longer was fine.

Since Snowy was in a different grade, I had no reservations about Far Glancing at her, and I found her in the art classroom, a spacious room with paintings of all kinds and styles covering the walls. They naturally had the corresponding class at the moment, with Mrs. Applebottom telling them how to sketch a still-life picture. Speaking of which, this was a good opportunity to point out something: Whenever we had a lesson, it was almost always taught by Mrs. Applebottom, regardless of the subject. In the past, I wondered how the other classes were proceeding when she was with us, and as it turned out, the students in the other classrooms seemed to be doing free study without any supervision. Well, for some measure of the word at least, since the placeholders in those classes were still fairly underdeveloped compared to our classmates, so it mostly resulted in them just blankly staring at the empty whiteboard for forty-five minutes.

However, here's where the really spooky part comes in: according to Snowy, Mrs. Applebottom was teaching her class about as often as ours. I was more than once tempted to check if she was at two places at once, but after I got a pretty bad headache from trying the first time, I figured this must be one of those mysteries of the Simulacrum like the ninja-maids, or people's lack of awareness of placeholders, that was better left unanswered. At least for the time being.

Anyhow, I was getting off-topic. So, at Snowy's classroom, she was also drawing, and… wow, the others weren't kidding. She really was good. I mean, I knew she could draw well already; I've seen a couple of her finished artworks, but I didn't know she could make them that fast and well. Note to self: praise her when we get home. Providing positive reinforcement as a big-brother figure was an important duty of mine after all.

That said, while watching her work was quite enthralling, I wasn't exactly learning anything new by observing her, so I reluctantly moved on to my next targets. The people in the secret base weren't doing anything particularly noteworthy. Ditto for the Dracis family. Mike was in his apartment playing a game, so same as usual. Weirdly enough, even though he was supposed to be a university student, I have never seen him attend a class. That wasn't the surprising part; people who were not directly linked to Josh or his entourage often had very simplistic daily routines unless they were entangled in the dreaded narrative's vile clutches. However, while he wasn't exactly living a productive university lifestyle, he still spent his whole day 'awake', so to speak, even if he was only lurking on the Hub and leveling his characters all day.

I couldn't help but wonder: did he have a complete personality and a semi-realistic 'off-screen' life because he was secretly always supposed to be an important player in the narrative, because he got connected to Ammy, or because he got connected to me? That last one was the most troubling option, but also the most realistic considering everything I have seen so far. I still refused the accept the idea of becoming a second protagonist beside Josh, but considering how much attention the nebulous narrative was paying to me as of late, maybe I could consider myself something of a wild-card the world was trying to accommodate.

Either way, this wasn't the right moment to contemplate my place in whatever grand design may or may not exist around me (I was still an advocate of the 'loosely directed chaos' school of thought, as opposed to Judy's 'omnipresent overmind director' and Elly's 'who cares, tell me how we can exploit things instead'). Once I was sure nothing interesting was happening around the clumsy Celestial, I moved on to my next target. Peabody was… exactly where I expected him to be: sitting inside the infirmary, all alone. What I wasn't expecting was that he was reading one of those dime-a-dozen romance novels you can buy for a pittance. I was almost tempted to take a peek at the contents, but in the end decided against it and moved onto the more interesting targets.

A moment later, I found myself staring down at Crowey from above. His outward injuries have been completely healed, or at the very least they were hidden by the fancy, embroidered black overcoat and leather gloves he was wearing at the moment. He was sitting behind an unexpectedly simple wooden desk inside a similarly austere, small study room, with a group of Abyssals currently in the process of vacating the premises. They just finished negotiating by the looks of it, and based on the expression on the Abyssal Lord's face, he wasn't entirely satisfied with the state of affairs. Served him right, I say, but the fact that things were actually happening around him meant that sooner or later he, or maybe someone connected to him, would probably make a move that should affect us in the near future.

That was bad news for us, especially since we still had the Knights, the Assembly investigators, and potentially the Chinese Draconians on our hands, so I decided to pay more attention to him from now on. From what I have gathered, him getting beaten by our ragtag group of misfits and 'losing' his sister shook the Inanna house to its foundations, and having to deal with the politics of the Abyss forced him to refrain from coming out of the Abyss for a rematch, but it was only a question of time before he felt his position was solid enough for him to come after us again. That is if we presumed that the narrative wouldn't yank on his strings at any moment and have him act anyway, of course, but that just gave me all the more reason to keep an eye on him.

Anyhow, I spent a few minutes observing the hand-written papers on the table, while also listening in on the man ordering his subordinates around, and I soon figured out he just made some kind of trade deal with another house. The details didn't seem too important, so I soon moved on to greener pastures. Or in this case, run-down, eastern bloc aesthetic pastures…

”— because of the lockdown,” the familiar voice of Mr. Griffon concluded whatever briefing he was giving to his fellow dastardly knights in the abandoned house that served as their current hidey-hole, though not for long if all the packed up equipment was any indication. Regrettably I could only tag a squire for my Far Sight, and he was currently sleeping in another room (he was probably on night shift or something), so I could only listen to their discussion by moving my point of view as close to the living room as I could.

”We shuid stairt pack'n! This steid isnae solid tae defend, sae we better shift tae th' freish fort ah foun!” Mr. Minotaur, with his unmistakable accent, declared with his usual gusto. At this point I expected the third knight, the one in the red armor, to say something, but instead it was a brand new voice entering the fray.

”What about Leonard? Does he know where the new base is?”

The newcomer was a young-ish girl by the sound of it, and listening to her felt like she was purposefully trying to talk in a lower voice than her natural tone. For a second I almost considered that she might have been trying to hide her voice, but there was no reason why they should suspect that anyone could hear them. Not to mention, with such a clumsy effort, I was ninety percent sure I would recognize her voice if we accidentally met on the street anyway. Maybe it was so that she sounded more mature and authoritative? Or maybe it was just a weird quirk. At least she didn't have a funky accent, which was admittedly a pretty low bar to clear, but hey, it was something.

”He is still in deep cover, so we didn't make contact with him yet,” the Griffon Knight stated, and I could immediately hear the new girl clicking her tongue.

”So you are telling me he doesn't know where to retreat in case of an emergency?”

”I doubt brother Leonard doesn't have an escape plan of his own,” the red-armored knight stated as he entered the conversation for the first time. ”He did an outstanding job when it comes to blending into the environment of the candidate, so he undoubtedly planned for emergencies as well.”

”Ye ur sellin' heem cuttie!” Mr. Minotaur cut in with a boisterous voice that kind of reminded me of Abram. I wondered if these two would get along if not for the while thousand years old blood feud thing. Oh, and the ridiculous accent, of course. ”Ye wilnae hawp this, Penny-gurl, but he hid his-sel sae weel, thaur ur e'en rumors abit heem datin' a body ay th' wyrmbloods!”

”No way,” the girl, whom I presumed was the previously mentioned 'Penny-girl', gasped in audible horror at the mere idea.

”I do not doubt the existence of such rumors,” Mr. Red commented on the side. ”Brother Leonard was always very adept with his words. Even if he only managed to maintain his cover in front of the scion of the wyrmbloods, it would certainly help him maintain his secret identity.”

”No, it's the exact opposite!” the girl protested, her voice almost cracking under the pressure of her anger. ”It would only draw more attention to him and put him in more danger. He would never do something so risky!”

”We, unfortunately, do not know of his circumstances,” Mr. Griffon lamented. ”However, we all know him well enough to trust his judgment. He must've had his reasons to get so intimate with the young wyrmblood.”

”Hauld yer horses! Ur ye suggestin' he se'uced th' wyrmbluid gurl fo real? Ur ye oot o` yer min'?!”

”Don't discard the possibility, brother Duncan. I can scarcely imagine a better way to hide one's identity as one of our own, and if anyone can perform such a subterfuge, it would definitely be brother Leonard.”

”I still can't believe it,” the knight girl denied quite vehemently. ”He would never do something so risky.”

”Where there is smoke, there is fire,” Mr. Griffon remarked, barely audible under the noise of metal plates sliding on each other. By my guess, he either sat down, or got up; one or the other. ”There is certainly some basis for these rumors. Whether they are true or not, we will learn once the time to test the candidate is nigh.”

”That's another thing I don't understand,” the girl grumbled while making rhythmic metallic noises, most likely by packing up and down. ”Why hasn't he tested the candidate yet?”

”If I had to make an educated guess,” Mr. Griffon mused aloud, ”it is most likely because of the appearance of the Dracis wyrmbloods on the island. Drawing their attention to the candidate too soon would be disastrous.”

”'N' then thare wis a' that chimera business 'n' him hidin' a seducin` bint o' th' Abyss! Whit's th' deal wi' that, anyway?”

”He's sheltering a what?!”

”There was an incident on the island a while back, apparently caused by one of the Abyssal Lords,” Mr. Red explained, completely unperturbed by the knight girl's unnecessarily loud reaction. ”According to what we learned, brother Leonard took one of the perpetrators under his wings, and she is now living with him.”

”It was an odd choice, but I believe he must have done so either to further solidify his cover, or to further split the attention of the Arch-Mage and the wyrmbloods on the island,” Mr. Griffon speculated, but his words apparently fell on deaf ears.

”That's it! I don't care about his cover or what have you! I will not have him live under the same roof with an Abyssal Seducer!”

”Whoa thaur, Penny-gurl! Calm doon!”

”Listen to brother Duncan, sister Penelope! Please put your sword away!”

The situation seemed hairy for a moment, but then the three men managed to somehow calm the temper of the knight girl by taking her mind off yours truly and focusing on their plans for the future instead. Unfortunately they have decided to do the latter while they moved over to their new base of operations inside the city, and left my marked squire (and subsequently, me) back in the old house.

Nevertheless, I still learned a couple of new things from this short excursion. First off, the knights finished reorganizing their ranks and might make a move soon. Two, the knight girl arrived on the island. Three, considering her reactions, she is apparently going to be a pain in the neck to deal with. Lovely.

Anyhow, all of this meant that I would have to pay a lot of extra attention to the knights in the future as well. In fact, I should really try to either sneakily mark one of the important guys, or at the very least track down their new headquarters on the island and have some of my people stake out the place to warn me if they started to move.

All of this was for later though. For now, I had nothing more to see here, so I decided to move on to my next target, and this time my timing couldn't have been better, as my disembodied viewpoint arrived in Lord Grandpa's office exactly at the same time when a certain annoying Arch-Mage proxy entered the scene.

”Whoa! You look, like, a total wreck! Did you party all night?”

The local Arch-Mage (who, for the record, really did look terrible at the moment) sent his colleague a wry glance, followed by a long groan and the sound of glass tinkling as he unceremoniously poured some milky liqueur into a large glass on his desk.

”What do you want? I thought you were still busy gallivanting around in your new body.”

”Oh gosh, Endy! Don't be so grouchy! I just came to pay you a visit and maaaaaybe ask about a few things! Two, no, wait… three things! Like the stuff missing from your record books.”

”What are you talking about?” Lord Grandpa growled, putting his glass back down before it could reach his lips.

”Oh, you know? Stuff? Like research materials and junk? They were supposed to be with the rest of the items we confiscated for the investigation, but they are nowhere to be found.” 'Sahi' let out a small giggle at this point and then skipped over to the Arch-Mage's side just so that he could poke him with her elbow and then say, ”Maybe you just misplaced them? I mean, at your age, people tend to forget things? If only you were a little younger, eh? Eh?”

”… You really enjoy showing off this new body of yours,” Endymonion noted, which elicited yet another chuckle from the 'girl'.

”Of course I do! Isn't that, like, obvious?”

”Even though it is not really your body yet,” Lord Grandpa dropped a bombshell, and it immediately made the smile on the brown girl's face wither.

To her credit, instead of trying to play dumb, she simply asked, ”When did you notice?”

”It pains me to admit it, but I was not the one who realized it first,” the old man lamented while theatrically sloshing his drink in his glass. ”It was the young mister Dunning who brought it to my attention.”

”Really? Wow. That boy is full of surprises.”

”Tell me about it,” the Arch-Mage griped aloud before taking a long sip from his glass.

In the meantime the other Arch-Mage dragged a chair over from the corner of the room and sat down in from of the owner of the place.

”Fine, I admit I still have some kinks to iron out, but as you can see, the prototype is almost complete!” She opened her arms wide, as if to show herself off, then added, ”Once I figure out how to permanently store a soul in the host body, it's going to be totally perfect.”

”If you can manage to do so,” the old man pointed out, apparently finally feeling back in the saddle, much to Sahi's chagrin.