"Somewhere else? Somewhere else in this garden?"
"This is a private garden of the Anjou Royal Family. Flowers may be beautiful, but they always wither. Though I like flowers as much as the other young ladies do, what I value is not merely surface beauty."
A black-gold vortex appeared beside her. With a gentle pull on Shade, she passed through the Teleportation Gate with him.
After a slight sense of imbalance, the howling cold wind immediately made Shade shudder. The wind cut across his face like blades. Everything around them was silver-white beneath the stars, and if not for the Winter God's blessing, he would likely have sunk deeply into the snow beneath his feet.
He instinctively wrapped Sylvia in his arms. Only then did Shade realize that after passing through the Teleportation Gate, they seemed to have arrived on a Snow Mountain.
Without air pollution or city lights, the starlight and moonlight atop the Snow Mountain were exceptionally vivid. Looking around, this seemed to be a mountainside slope. Since Shade had once adventured in even more dangerous places such as the Silver Mountain Range, he wanted to find somewhere sheltered from the wind first, but Sylvia stopped him:
"Let's keep going upward. The destination isn't far."
She looked around nostalgically:
"There should actually be a stone staircase beneath our feet. Unfortunately, no one has maintained it for many years, and it has been completely buried under the snow. Come on, keep climbing, Shade. We'll be there soon."
"Where is this? Have we reached the Far North?"
Shade took his coat from his pocket and draped it over Sylvia's shoulders, still holding her protectively in his arms.
The witch did not pull free from Shade's embrace, merely answering softly:
"Not the Far North. This is Fatumonst Island, the largest island