"We are guardians, but we are also a group of miserable wretches constantly fighting danger and madness."
When Angel opened her door and returned home, insulated from the clamor of the streets, Dunn Smith's words from the funeral still echoed in her ears.
She did not change out of the black dress she had worn to the funeral. Instead, she collapsed directly into the armchair by the bay window in the living room, her posture even more languid and exhausted than usual.
It was already noon on Monday. A full two days had passed since Crestet Cesimir, the "Sword of the Goddess," arrived in Tingen to assess the two Nighthawks.
Yet the sight of Old Neil lying covered in blood on the cold floor of the Alchemy Room, the pain in Dunn's eyes as he looked at her, and the expressions of the Tingen Team members—some crying out in disbelief, others silently gritting their teeth—remained deeply etched in her mind.
And Rozanne's tearful questioning, the Deep Sleep Flowers before the grave, the epitaph on the tombstone...
"If you cannot save her, then go and keep her company."
That was the latest entry in the diary the Nighthawks found at Old Neil's home after his death.
Old Neil had no other living relatives. After his death, the team members searched his residence as was customary, only to learn from his belongings that he had always been striving to resurrect his beloved, his fiancée Shariste, who had died young. He believed that his younger self had not been strong enough to cure his gravely ill fiancée through Ritual Magic, and in his guilt and regret, he had continuously sought the aid of various mysterious powers.
The Life Transmutation and resurrection ritual Old Neil had obtained from the Hidden Sage had also been