In a cemetery on the outskirts of Lenburg, the gravestones looked unlike those elsewhere on the continent. They were neither upright blocks nor crosses, but open books, their pages inscribed with the lives and epitaphs of the dead.
The stone used for these "gravestones" was unusual. Polished until it gleamed, it reflected the sun as dazzlingly as a mirror. The people of Lenburg commonly called this radiance the light of "Wisdom."
At that moment, a figure appeared in the light of "Wisdom" reflected from one gravestone. She wore a hunter's cap and a fitted riding shirt—the classic attire of a female pirate.
It was Edwina, who had just emerged from a mirror in the Daniel Labyrinth.
She studied her surroundings and quickly worked out where she was. Then she glanced back at the epitaph on the book-shaped gravestone behind her:
"His body rests here; his heart follows the Emperor forever."
It was the gravestone of Edwards, one of Roselle's Four Knights.
"Great-grandfather..." Edwina murmured. She found it strange that she had been deposited here, but gave it no further thought. She bowed respectfully, then used a Secret Art to conjure a bouquet of flowers and placed it before the grave.
Only after that did Edwina try to contact Abner with Roselle's Dream Spell. Unfortunately, she failed.
"Is he more than five hundred nautical miles away?"
Her expression remained calm, but concern flickered through her pale blue eyes before she concealed it.
Something stirred in her then, and she turned toward the cemetery entrance.
A woman who appeared to be around thirty, with black hair and blue eyes, approached in a long black dress and matching boots. Within a second or two, she had reached Edwina.
"I foresaw that you'd appear in the cemetery today, so I came to have a