The Day of Death

Though it had few members, the Raven Club truly kept quite a number of crows. Even the oil paintings hanging on the corridor walls depicted crows. And when Shade and Sister Devlin, led by a man, met the rumored boy in a study deep within the house, the first thing Shade noticed was the crow in the birdcage hanging by the door.

Its feathers were pitch-black and its eyes red. After the three of them entered, it kept flapping its wings inside the cage, seeming extremely uneasy.

The man who had led them there did not remain in the room for long. After introducing the visitors to the room's owner, he left.

The door closed behind Shade, and the study was rather dim. Though it was daytime, the curtains were drawn tight, and only the Gas Lamps on the walls to either side provided illumination. The lampshades seemed not to have been cleaned in a long time, making the light exceptionally murky.

Together with the occasional sound of the crow beating its wings and the strange scent of burning spices in the study, the place truly looked like the room of a professional fortune-teller.

The study was large, divided into two sections: bookshelves and a desk in the east, and a sofa set in the west. Only the two Gas Lamps in the western section were lit, while the so-called "boy" sat waiting for them on the long sofa.

Shade pushed the wheelchair, its metal wheels rolling over the red carpet. He sat on the long sofa opposite the boy, not in the middle but to one side, because the wheelchair was parked beside the sofa.

Two steaming cups of tea had already been placed on the tea table between him and the boy. It seemed the host had calculated