At 6:30 p.m., in the only private dining room of Old Veil Restaurant.
Everyone from Blackthorn Security Company had arrived: the other seven Beyonders and five clerical staff, excluding Frye the Corpse Collector, who needed to stand watch over Chanis Gate.
One of the evening's main guests, Klein Moretti, had visited a retired knight that afternoon and undergone rigorous combat training.
He now looked exhausted, his gaze unfocused as he stared at the long table covered in a white cloth. Both hands massaged his leg muscles, and even slight movements occasionally aggravated the injuries on his body, making him bare his teeth and suck in sharp breaths.
The other main guest, Angel Granger, had shed the shirt, trousers, and trench coat she usually wore in favor of a summer dress. Unaccustomed to the outfit, she tried her best to curl up in her upholstered chair so she would draw less attention.
Miss Rozanne leaned close beside her and whispered something. Due to their difference in height, Angel could only bend down and tilt her head, listening to the other woman's whispers with a smile.
Dunn Smith, captain of the Tingen City Nighthawks, had shut himself in his office all day, pondering how to become a true Nightmare. He seemed to have gained something from it; his eyes were sharp as they swept across the team members around the table one by one.
Seeka Tron, the white-haired, black-eyed Midnight Poet who liked writing novels in her spare time, was speaking quietly with Royale Reideen, another female Nighthawk, her gaze occasionally passing over Angel and Klein. Leonard Mitchell, a poet with a somewhat unruly air about him, sipped his aperitif bit by bit, squinting as if lost in thought. Kenley White, short but solidly and evenly muscled, had only just finished his