This was a man with long, curly hair. His face was pale, his eye sockets deep-set, and his nose high-bridged. His long hair was tied behind his head, with only the curls before his forehead still hanging along both cheeks.
He held an expensive camera in his hands, his brows tightly furrowed as he crouched there, earnestly pressing the shutter again and again. Although Naples lay near the sea, the temperature difference between day and night was enormous. Perhaps for that reason, the man still wore a somewhat thick dark-blue wool coat, with a red-and-blue plaid scarf wrapped around his neck.
Salomon's voice startled him so badly that he nearly jumped, but the Arcanist's hand on the man's shoulder held him firmly in place.
"Who are you?!" he cried as he turned around. Then he saw Salomon, who was somewhat shorter than him, and the tense wrinkles on his face immediately eased.
"Cough, cough!" he whispered to the Arcanist. "It's dangerous here. I think you'd better leave first, because some things ordinary people can't understand might happen next. Are you with the choir? Or some bishop's child?"
"Do I look like a follower of some damned god?" Salomon looked down at his outfit. The black Mystic Robe and dark-red coat made him look nothing like a clergyman.
Probably?
Salomon looked up. "For your own safety, I suggest you leave as soon as possible. You have no ability to fight back against those things."
The man suddenly felt the hand on his shoulder grow much stronger. An irresistible force dragged him backward, throwing him completely off balance and sending him sprawling onto the floor.
"Leave? No! I finally tracked her down!" Even so, he tried to keep his voice low. Then he immediately caught on. "Those things? You know something?"
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