Mr. Hutton headed in the opposite direction. Before leaving, he handed Richard the back-door key and told him to lock up, then leave through the gap in the wall.
Richard locked the door, followed the wall to the low gap on the eastern side, and climbed over.
The streets were nearly deserted.
He slipped his hand into his pocket, pinching the silver coin between his right thumb and forefinger.
The panel glowed quietly in the corner of his mind.
[Available Points: 0.25]
The coin had yielded 0.1 points as soon as he got his hands on it, and was still seeping energy.
Unlike the Sphinx Oil Lamp, the residual Aether in the coin wasn't suppressed by a seal. Its seepage was slow, but much less restricted than the lamp's.
By the time he reached the steps outside his home:
[Available Points: 0.5]
The number stopped changing.
He took the coin out of his pocket and turned it over beneath the streetlamp.
The gray-blue frost had disappeared completely, and the coin's surface had returned to its pure, old-silver sheen.
Drained dry.
A silver coin more than three hundred years old, with roughly 0.4 points of residual Aether deposited in it as a byproduct of serving as a medium for filtering a seal.
He slipped the coin back into his pocket and began making comparisons.
Copper Pendant: 1 point, a thousand-year-old artifact containing primal, sealed supernatural residue;
God-Descending Disk: 1 point, likewise an Eastern Continent relic more than a thousand years old;
Sphinx Oil Lamp: with its seal intact, he could only absorb 0.1 points at a time, but if the seal were removed, the total might exceed 1 point;
Silver Coin: 0.4 points, only three or four hundred years old, and not a primordial relic, just a byproduct of the sealing process.
There seemed to be some kind of positive correlation between age and points.
The older the relic, the more supernatural residue it contained and the more points it could provide.
If his theory was correct:
How much would genuine supernatural relics with histories stretching back a thousand years or more contain? Things like the implements used by priests at the height of the Black Soil River Basin civilization, or sacred objects from the temples of the Aegeus Sea?
Two points? Four? Seven?
He stood on the steps for a while, tamping down his excitement.
Tonight had already brought him plenty.
He had witnessed the entire process of reinforcing a seal with his own eyes, confirmed an important theory—that Aether diffused through the air couldn't be converted into points by the panel—
and gained 0.4 available points, a sprig of Grey-Stamen Grass, and a little spellcraft for self-defense.
There was also the new understanding he'd gained from that residual image, far more vivid than anything he'd read in a book.
He took out his key and unlocked the front door as quietly as he could.
The living room was dark, and so was the kitchen.
Richard carried his shoes in his hands and crept barefoot up the stairs, one step at a time.
The old floorboards gave the faintest creak beneath his feet.
When he reached the second-floor hallway, there was no light beneath his sister's door either.
He tiptoed past it, about to push open his own bedroom door...
"Stop right there."
A voice emerged from the darkness, slightly nasal.
Richard's heart tightened. He realized his bedroom door had opened from the inside.
Evelyn was sitting on his bed, wrapped in a blanket.
Her hair was loose, and her eyes were half-lidded. She had clearly been waiting in his room for a long time.
"Do you know what time it is?"
Richard glanced at the clock in the hallway, but it was too dark to see clearly.
"...A little after eleven."
"Eleven forty-seven." Evelyn's tone was icy. She had obviously checked the time.
"I went out for a walk."
"A walk that lasted until eleven forty-seven."
"The air's nice at night."
"The air in Briston is nice?"
Fair enough. The city reeked of coal smoke during the day. It was hard to believe the air was nice at night.
Evelyn climbed out of bed. The blanket slipped from her shoulders, and she quickly caught it and wrapped it around herself again.
Moonlight spilled in through the little window at the end of the hallway, making her cute little face look deathly pale.
She came up to Richard and sniffed him a few times like a puppy. "You smell funny."
Richard had a bad feeling.
That damp, chilly smell from the basement, mixed with rust and age-old decay, must have clung to him.
"I passed by the secondhand market while I was out."
"The secondhand market is closed at night."
"The smell drifted out when I walked past."
Evelyn looked him up and down.
Dark old coat, dust on his trouser cuffs, shoes in his hands, bare feet so he wouldn't wake anyone, and dirt wedged between his fingers.
She'd never had to worry about her brother staying out all night before.
Richard used to be sick all the time. He wouldn't have sneaked out in the middle of the night; even a brisk walk would have sent him back to bed for half a day.
But now?
He spent his days at the library until dark;
rode home in a wealthy female classmate's car;
and went out at night, coming back close to midnight with dirt all over him.
She realized she could no longer keep up with how quickly her brother was changing.
"Bro."
"Yeah?"
"Did you join a gang or something?"
"...What?"
"One of those gangs in the old district. The kind that steals and gets into fights."
"Evelyn, you know I can't fight."
"That's why you join a gang. Then someone's there to protect you."
Richard felt that conversations with his sister never followed normal logic.
From "being kept" to "joining a gang," the girl's train of thought took some wild leaps.
"I didn't join any gang."
"Then what were you doing out in the middle of the night?"
"I really was just taking a walk."
"Do Mom and Dad know?"
"No."
Evelyn pulled the blanket tighter around herself but stopped questioning him. She still didn't return to her room.
After they stood there for about ten seconds, she moved aside to clear the doorway.
"Go back to bed."
"Okay."
"Leave your dirty clothes outside your door when you change. I'll get up early and wash them for you tomorrow, so Mom doesn't see."
In the moonlight, the girl wrapped in a blanket had tousled hair and sleepy, unfocused eyes.
She looked nothing like the usual brisk, capable Evelyn. Instead, she rather resembled a little owl curled up in its nest... Her round cheeks puffed out, and she glared at him with drowsy eyes. She looked fierce, but she was really just tired.
"Thanks, Evelyn."
"Don't thank me." She turned her head away. "I don't care what you're really doing."
"But promise me... don't get hurt, don't get sick, and don't make Mom worry again.
"When your fever was at its worst last time, Mom sat by your bed the whole time. She barely drank any water."
She murmured,
"Dad didn't say anything, but he missed work for those two days, too."
The hallway fell silent for a long while.
"I promise," Richard said.
Evelyn didn't respond. She opened her bedroom door and went inside.
The door shut, and the latch clicked softly into place.
A few seconds later, a muffled voice came from beneath the door:
"Leave your dirty clothes outside. Don't forget."
"I won't."
"And remember to wipe the dirt off your feet."
"I will."
"I'll fry you an extra egg for breakfast tomorrow."
"...Okay."
"Good night."
"Good night."
Richard closed his bedroom door, took off his dirty coat, folded it, and left it outside.
Then he found an old rag and wiped the dirt from the soles of his feet.
The sweat on the back of his shirt had dried, leaving a ring of salt.
He took off the shirt too and placed it on top of the coat.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark, he took the silver coin and Grey-Stamen Grass from his pocket.
He put the coin on the bedside table and tucked the grass between the covers of his notebook.
His breathing gradually returned to its usual rhythm in the night.
Richard pulled up the blanket and closed his eyes.
Outside, the wind swept through Briston's forest of chimneys, whistling mournfully.
The pillow was cool and comfortable against the back of his head.
Today, he had witnessed a glimpse of the real Occult Side, more real than anything he'd read in all those forum posts.
But the candle had been lit. Whether the eyes in the darkness could see it was their concern.
He had only one thing to do: make the flame burn brighter, and brighter still.
Until one day, even if those eyes saw it, they wouldn't dare come near.
Before you continue