"What took you so long? We've already finished with the cemetery."
Bòhé crushed his cigarette beneath his heel as I stepped down from the carriage. The frost-bitten gravel complained softly underfoot. Behind him, the iron gates of the cemetery stood ajar, their shadows tangled with headstones slick with dawn-dew. Snowdrops—perce-neige—pushed through the soil as if nothing in this world had ever died properly.
"Oh? Is that so," I said, adjusting my coat. "And now?"
"Now," he replied, a smile cutting across his face, "we catch our prey."
I followed his gaze. Stone, dirt, moss—history layered atop history, names half-erased by weather and neglect.
"We finally found him?" I asked.
Bòhé started walking. "Officer, you can return," he called over his shoulder.
The man hesitated. "And you expect me to just—"
"You're not one of us," Bòhé said pleasantly. "Best you remember that."
The officer left.
"What were you doing back there anyway?" Bòhé asked, kicking aside a broken twig. "The shrine's already been cleared. Nothing connects it to this case."
"That may be true," I replied, as the city thinned behind us and trees swallowed the road, "but this was never only about the case. It was about the possibility—that Miss Hazel might be a witch. Among other things."
"Hm."
The forest pressed in. Trunks rose like columns in a ruined cathedral, bark pale with lichen, roots clawing at the earth.
"Where are we headed?" I asked.
"To where the Onmyōji said he'd be," Bòhé replied. "Lieutenant and the others are already there."
"Do we have a name?"
"Yes." He paused deliberately. "Paul Liebrecht."
I waited.
"A clerk," he added, savoring it.
I scoffed quietly. A mage hiding behind ledgers. The country should have known. If they hadn't, then ignorance itself was part of the crime.
"Took you long enough," a voice said as we emerged into a clearing.
"Apologies for the delay," I replied, accepting my blade as it was handed back to me. The metal felt colder than it should have.
"How did it go?" the lieutenant asked.
"Nothing of substance on the others," I said, fitting my contact lenses in place. "But Miss Hazel? Quite a bit."
"I see."
He passed Bòhé his rifle.
"Confirm your link to the Jikū-Axiom," he ordered.
"We need to move. If Grey Ops notice you here—"
"That just means meat for the ginger," Fēng replied cheerfully.
Within four minutes we were advancing through the forest in an arrowhead formation. The air felt wrong—too thin, as though someone had rubbed parts of it out and forgotten to redraw them.
Boom.
A tree detonated.
Wood and sap exploded outward, chunks embedding themselves in neighboring trunks. Leaves rained down in stunned silence.
"Status?" the lieutenant barked.
"Zǐ Shān is injured," Fēng reported from the rear.
The trees stood motionless now, innocent and treacherous all at once. Every root a trigger. Every trunk a lie.
"Fēng, Zǐ Shān—fall back," the lieutenant ordered. "Treat the wound and hold position."
We advanced carefully, avoiding trees and even their shadows. The explosion confirmed it: an enchanter. The forest itself had been rewritten into a minefield.
Then—
"Pause."
The lieutenant's hand froze mid-signal. My suzu fell silent.
In that same instant, a violent gust slammed into Bòhé—air rushing into him.
And then—
Nothing.
Sound vanished. Pressure vanished. Breath followed.
In that suffocating silence, I saw him: a silhouette behind a tree, wrong in the way he occupied space. I signaled the lieutenant with the seconds I had left.
He nodded.
I moved.
Time stopped. The Jikū-Axiom held. I moved, pulling my gun free as we closed the distance. The world was frozen mid-edit, reality caught between drafts.
I fired.
Legs. Stomach.
The signal went up.
Boom.
The dispelling collapsed.
Air screamed back into existence. Sound returned violently, like punishment. The forest convulsed as time resumed and his spell failed.
"Why didn't you finish me?" Liebrecht gasped, clutching his abdomen.
The others arrived—Bòhé limping, face pale.
"Where's your grimoire?" the lieutenant demanded, gun trained steadily despite the blood seeping through his sleeve.
Liebrecht spat. Missed.
"I don't think he's going to talk," Fēng said flatly.
"And no Grey operatives," the lieutenant added, already turning away. "We're late."
Liebrecht tried to speak again.
I shot him in the chest.
Then the head.
"Fēng," the lieutenant said, "take care of the body."
"What do you think happened, sir?" I asked as we regrouped.
"Someone beat us to the result," he said, gazing up at the late-morning sky. "Liebrecht was only the middle layer."
"The result?"
"He was conducting research," the lieutenant replied, unwrapping a piece of candy. "And whatever he found has already been handed over."
He offered one to me.
"So we report a failure to acquire the grimoire."
"Yes."
"What do you think was in it?"
He nudged the shattered stump with his boot. "Enough. Enchanter. Necromancer. Mage. Grimoires aren't just books—they're autobiographies written over reality."
I looked at my hands, suddenly unsure. Fire cultivators burned forward. These men erased backward.
"Forest sweep," Zǐ Shān said, smiling faintly despite the bandage. "For any more exploding trees."
As we turned back, the snowdrops bent gently in the disturbed air.
Even freezing the present cannot change the past, I thought.
But someone had already tried.