"It's all right."
Iluna looked up at Shade with a smile.
"There are no guests, but your home itself is quite lovely. I don't have a formal dress, but you don't need to wear formal attire either. There's no phonograph or orchestra, but I can hum the dance music myself. Shade, I'm quite good at singing."
As she spoke, she stood up, and Shade braced himself against the table and rose as well.
The seventeen-year-old girl seemed to be in quite a good mood. She reached the living room before Shade, spread her arms, closed her eyes, and spun in place three times beneath the sunlight by the window. Her skirt flared like a flower, her figure filling Shade's view as her shadow swayed across the walls, sofa, and cabinets.
She stopped, opened her eyes, and looked at Shade. Her brown hair seemed to glitter in the sunlight, and there truly was light in her eyes.
"Mr. Shade Hamilton, may I invite you to dance?"
She held out her hand to Shade.
"Lady, it would be my honor."
Shade smiled and gave a slight bow.
The two danced an entire piece beneath the sunlight to Iluna's humming. Only afterward did Shade escort the faintly flushed Iluna to the street corner outside Saint Derain Square, where they headed off in opposite directions.
Shade put the three Mind Crystals, each the size of a grain of rice, into a paper envelope he had folded himself and went straight to Old John Pawnshop.
Ever since contacting the Guiding Light Hermitage and learning that Old Dad John was also one of its members, this was Shade's first time seeing him. Yet when they met, the two tacitly avoided mentioning the Hermitage. After Old Dad John teased Shade about not seeing him recently, Shade poured