"Normal" Memories

"Sir, you really needn't feel sorry for us. This was all our own choice."

Grace's voice was very gentle. Her silhouette once again embraced Helen's. Behind the thin three-layered curtains, surrounded by Red Butterflies, the two were unusually intimate.

"We thought the story would continue like this until one of us grew weary of it, or until we reached Final Death alongside all things. But then, you appeared."

Shade was startled inwardly:

"Now that I think about it, I'm curious. How did you find the Detective Hamilton Agency in Tobesk? That commission was clearly not meant for Detective Sparrow Hamilton, but for me. Yet at the time, I was not who I am now."

"It wasn't us who found it. Miss Mana Falianna told us about it."

Helen answered in a soothing tone, her hand stroking her elder sister's earlobe.

"That was many years after we parted from you at that banquet, and many years after the Battle of Sikar Mountain. Having become what we are now, we found the already-established Saint Byrens Comprehensive College and met Miss Feliana again, the one who had once helped us."

Miss Olanord had also said that the twins had indeed met Miss Feliana and, with her help, become true witches. That had happened before the Battle of Sikar Mountain.

"She was dissatisfied with our choice and powerless to change our condition. We wanted to know about you, but Miss Feliana refused to tell us. She even had the librarian lock us in the library and forbade us from wandering around the Academy. That was how our initial containment record came to be."

The truth of history was often even more astonishing than stories.

"Later, unable to withstand our pleas, Miss Feliana gave us three words: 'Tobesk,' 'Saint Derain Square,' and 'Hamilton.'"

Grace spoke