Chapter 56.3: When I Heard at the Close of the Day

  His one-way flight from Tokyo to Singapore was not until 1 am.

  As there was still time to spare, Dante took his time to tidy up the gymnasium that had become his hideout in his last weeks in Yokohama. He wiped the chalk from the metal rings until they gleamed, stacked the trampoline mats and twisted the training dummies so that they faced the same direction.

  He erased himself from the room piece by piece. By the time he was finished, it looked as though he and the students had never trained there at all; it simply looked like another unused facility. He would never set foot in here again, but the students might.

  Tidying up the gymnasium was good enough of a goodbye to them.

  Without another look back, Dante shut the doors and headed for the parking lot.

  He spotted the figure as he approached his car.

  Leaning casually against the passenger’s door—as if he owned the vehicle— was the last person Dante wanted anywhere near him.

  Felix Lee.

  Felix was not his usual, dressed-down self. His hair was tied up in a neat man bun held in place by a gold hair stick. He wore not his casual outfit with leather boots, but the Elder’s regalia: a pristine white three-piece suit, polished dress shoes, and a cloak draped over his arm. The aiguillettes on the cloak clinked against the armour that padded the shoulders as he shifted. Judging by the sweat on his forehead, he probably rushed to Yokohama from the Ortus.

  Whatever question Dante might have had about why Felix was here was answered by the two briefcases standing upright at the redhead’s feet.

  “Hello, it’s been a while.” Felix reached back, fingers brushing the hair stick as if to check that it was still there. The hair stick was sculpted in the shape of a dragon. Its eyes were set with rubies that glinted in the streetlights.

  Dante tried to tear his eyes away from Felix’s hair stick, but the image of the dragon with ruby-red eyes was seared into his mind. Even with his eyes closed, its heat lingered, stamped into the backs of his eyelids like a brand; every blink only rekindled it. He gave a slight shake of his head, as if he could dislodge it from his mind.

  It had been a long time since he had stood this close to one of his most intricate creations—second only to his rings—ever since it had left his hands as a gift. Sometimes, in quiet moments, he almost wished he had never taken up jewellery crafting at all.

  Because every piece he had ever created was a curse—his curse. They had bound him, inextricably, to the Sanctum; a fate he had long been trying to defy.

  The rings, for starters, were missing.

  He had called them hindrances. Shackles. Proof of the chains he meant to sever. And yet, against all reason, something in his chest gave a faint, treacherous twinge when he remembered Lady Meng’s expression as she confessed that she had them mended.

  The vinegary feeling Dante could not name settled low and heavy in his chest.

  With a shaky breath, Dante tore his eyes from the hair stick and said as evenly as he could, “Talk in the car.”

  ***

  Felix slid into the passenger seat first, but closed the door after Dante. It was a hassle hauling in hefty briefcases, which got tangled in his godforsaken cloak, but he somehow managed to do so without making a fool of himself.

  The air inside was colder than he expected. Or perhaps it was Dante.

  The interior light flickered on briefly, casting them in sharp relief. The AC roared; it was the icing on top of the frigidity of their contrasting visages. Himself in immaculate white, the Elder’s regalia still pristine despite the rush. And Dante—black blazer, burgundy turtleneck, black trousers—wrapped in wine-dark restraint.

  They sat like that for several long seconds. Felix could hear the faint shift of fabric as Dante adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, though he had no intention of driving. The aiguillettes gave a faint metallic chime before settling as Felix rested his hands over the briefcases. He became acutely aware of the dragon at the back of his head, of the weight of the briefcases in his lap.

  Dante did not once look at him.

  Felix cleared his throat. “I’m here to give you your—”

  Gift, his mind supplied, insistent.

  “—dues,” he finished instead.

  “The contract states that no stipends need to be made,” Dante said flatly. “Only safe passage was required.”

  “Was.” Felix latched onto the slip-up quickly. “Your contract has… technically ended. You finished up your last lesson with Ace today, didn’t you?”

  Dante’s eyes slid toward him—slow, unimpressed—before returning to the windshield. But he did not correct the statement.

  “Consider these as tokens of appreciation from us,” Felix said, lifting the topmost briefcase and holding it out to him. “From Dr. Farid, Meng Meng and me.”

  They were not aware of their meeting. But Felix felt that throwing up their names would help dull the edge in the conversation.

  Dante eyed him suspiciously. “No strings attached,” Felix supplemented, and only then did Dante reach out for the briefcase.

  Felix held his breath as the latches snapped open.

  Inside, laid against fine black velvet foam, was Dante’s short sword—Hollow Sparrow.

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  Dante did not touch it immediately.

  Sitting below the blade’s edge were his two rings, replicas of Obscure Scarlet.

  “I— I went back. To the hospital.” Felix felt the need to explain himself. “I intended to erase every trace of you before the investigation started. The students… Ace– he mentioned that it shattered.”

  He faltered there.

  “And?” Dante prompted quietly.

  “I couldn’t find anything.” Felix gulped. “I used Trace. I e-even got my older sister to help. We couldn’t find anything except for the hilt…”

  His fingers curled against the briefcase still resting on his lap. “The rings— I found them in the rubble,” he continued. “I assumed they’d been dropped during the—”

  Felix cut himself off as his throat was tightening.

  “During whatever happened,” he concluded, unable to bring himself to revisit the events that had unfolded.

  Dante stared at the rings for so long that Felix began to wonder if he would simply close the case and bash his face into it.

  Felix held his breath so long he thought he might black out—until, at last, Dante reached out and picked up one of the rings. He watched the corners of Dante’s mouth harden.

  There was a time when Dante hurled the rings away without looking at them. He also vaguely remembered Dante on the floor, body twisting as his Regalia restrained him and forced the rings down his fingers.

  Or was it a memory warped by his delirium? Felix could not be certain.

  But if it were real, Dante must have been feeling the memory as well, judging by how his jaw twitched. He inhaled deeply before letting out a long sigh.

  In that moment, Dante’s expression softened. He was neither drawn by thick lines nor defined by his sharp edges. The back of his head bumped gently against the headrest as he slid on the first ring, as though he was doing it against his will.

  The second followed soon after.

  Dante’s gaze quickly snapped toward his brand-new short sword. The broad, brutal slab of metal caught the light dully, its edge thick and unapologetically blunt.

  “Custom-made by Chakrit.” Felix tapped his fingers together, casually omitting the fact that Chakrit had written a note, which sprayed red ink all over Felix when he took a peek at its contents.

  The message had been scrawled in thick, dripping letters that looked disturbingly like blood:

  Don’t you FUCKING dare break my masterpiece EVER AGAIN. There will NEVER be a fourth blade!!!! N-E-V-E-R.

  Dante turned the blade over in his hands. The tiny aperture near the spine—the one that produced Hollow Sparrow’s signature whistle when he swung it—was still there. So was the original engraving of the sword’s name, carved close to the hilt.

  But there was something new.

  Further along the body of the blade, cut deeper into the steel, was an additional engraving—one only Dante could understand.

  虚空の夢に、心は従う

  Felix saw the subtle shift in Dante’s eyes as he read it.

  “To the dream of the void, the heart follows,” Dante translated the engraving as it was, his voice devoid of inflexion.

  His only remark? “Chakrit’s been taking creative liberties again.”

  Felix let out a chuckle before handing over the second briefcase.

  Dante looked at it, then at him. “What’s this?”

  “A second blade,” Felix replied. “I’m guessing it looks the same. You know that guy’s a perfectionist…”

  “Why are there two?”

  “He had extra material,” Felix answered too quickly. “You’ll have a spare. It’s not too bad!” He gave an airy wave of his hand, as if the matter were trivial. “It was all Chakrit’s idea, of course.”

  The truth was that an obscene amount of money had been thrown at the problem. The original Hollow Sparrow had not been forged from ordinary steel. Its core had been a rare, amorphous composite. Procuring it had required favours Felix would rather not revisit and a personal expenditure large enough that the Treasurer would have frothed at the mouth if he saw the bill.

  Felix did not mention any of that. He could already hear his sister cackling to herself.

  Instead, he adjusted his cuffs and said mildly, “Try not to break these.”

  Dante tipped his head forward slightly, as though giving a subtle nod. “Will that be all?” he asked.

  If the God Hands permitted it, he would have asked to stop time in that moment—to suspend the air between them, to trap the faint warmth still left inside the vehicle, to hold Dante exactly as he was while he was still within reach.

  But they would not answer to sentiment.

  Especially not his.

  Instead, Felix forced himself to breathe and said, “Our business ends here.”

  Dante did not respond. He only watched him as the door popped open. Cool air slipped in immediately. Then a drizzle followed — fine, persistent, unmistakably October in Yokohama. It was the kind that did not soak immediately, but would stubbornly cling to skin.

  Felix stepped out onto the pavement.

  He did not close the door immediately.

  He did not take his eyes off Dante.

  Not as the first drops caught in his hair. Not when there were enough fine streaks on his face to form droplets that rolled down his face. Not when he could feel the dampness of his clothes on his skin.

  Dante remained seated inside, partially obscured by shadow. He had already placed the briefcases on the passenger seat and was probably still watching him, waiting for the door to shut.

  And so, Felix shut the door. The thud was much louder than he had imagined.

  Still, he did not look away.

  Felix stepped slowly back from the vehicle. Rain gathered along his lashes, blurring the edges of Dante’s silhouette through the window.

  He memorised it anyway. The angle of Dante’s posture, the faint reflection cutting across his face and the quiet weight of his words.

  Even when the engines hummed to life, Felix could not bear to turn away. He remained standing there long after the car disappeared, rain threading steadily through his hair, down his collar, into the hollow of his throat.

  The God Hands were as silent as the rain.

  That night, in the dim stillness of his room, Felix attempted something far more pathetic than asking time to stop.

  He tried to summon Dante into his dreams.

  Dreams were treacherous grounds to build on, but it was his own domain to exploit. Felix reconstructed Dante piece by piece—the hard edge of his voice and the way resignation had settled into his features when he slid the rings on.

  Everything.

  Felix cradled the image close to his chest as sleep took him under.

  But it seemed that dreams were not beyond the clutches of the God Hands, for Dante did not come.

  When Felix awoke, he was achingly alone.

  ===

  At the close of the day, they were not joined.

  They were not one.

  Such was Paradiso and Inferno.

  And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,

  I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,

  For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,

  In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,

  And his arm lay lightly around my breast – and that night I was happy.

  -- Walt Whitman, When I Heard at the Close of the Day