The enemy's name

That afternoon, at the academy tennis courts.

This had recently become the aristocratic students' favorite pastime. Boxing was too crude, horse racing took up too much space, and as the Blackwater River grew increasingly foul, the authorities had stopped recommending that students row on it.

Gordon took the walnut wood racket Charlotte handed him.

She had tied her golden hair with a blue ribbon and wore an ivory-white short jacket with a dark blue sports skirt, brightening Gordon's day.

"You look like you're in a good mood," Charlotte said.

"A selfless man gave me twenty-seven copper pence for free, the clerk at the Fried Fish Brothers gave me twenty-two copper pence in change, and the professor paid me my weekly wage of three silver pounds. On top of that, I donated a hundred and forty jin of valuable material to our department and received a certificate of commendation. Wealth, career, honor-I have it all," Gordon explained at leisure.

Charlotte smiled.

Then he told her what had happened while he was eating yesterday. By the time he finished, Charlotte could no longer smile.

"...So you really did keep your promise," Charlotte said. "You're not hiding everything from me anymore."

"I need you," Gordon said.

"...Did that man really have octopus tentacles? And he followed you all the way to the fish shop?" Charlotte asked.

"Yes."

Charlotte's movements paused for a moment. He had no idea what she was thinking.

The coach blew his brass whistle.

Charlotte served. Her form was precise and elegant, and the white ball skimmed the net tape before plunging toward Gordon's left.

She clearly thought Gordon would miss it.

That was a reasonable assumption. Gordon was not a fast runner, and his arms lacked the definition that came from years of exercise.

He pulled the Unbroken Strings taut in his mind, calculating where the ball would land and how far he needed to advance.

Then he swung forward.

Thwack.

The white ball sailed high across the court and landed close to the sideline. Charlotte hurried back, but missed it by a fraction.

"Fifteen-love."

Charlotte grew serious.

After a few rallies, she sensed something was wrong.

Gordon did not run fast, but his strokes were clean. He never wasted a movement, and his reactions were far quicker than Charlotte's.

Several students at the edge of the court looked over.

At first, they had only been curious why Miss Montfort was playing tennis with a commoner.

Now they were curious about something else.

Why could this fellow always hit the ball somewhere she could not reach?

"You really haven't played before?" Charlotte asked.

"I even had to borrow your racket. What do you think?"

"Then why can you return it every time?"

"I'm good at dealing with problems that come flying at me." Gordon took his stance. "Like the one last night."

Charlotte served again, abruptly putting much more force into it.

"Angry?" Gordon asked.

"I'm just playing tennis," Charlotte said.

"He had operational orders on him, along with a portrait of me." Gordon returned the next ball. "Whoever drew it probably saw what happened that night."

She froze for a moment. The white ball sailed over her head and landed in the backcourt.

"So someone in my household leaked the information?" she said.

"In any case, someone knows things they shouldn't."

Charlotte walked up to the net, her grip tightening slightly around her racket.

This had gone beyond a collectible and a few Aberrants.

Someone had reached into her social circle, found Gordon's throat, and tried to murder a young man who had only been caught up in all this.

The thought chilled her.

"You could ask Evans," Gordon said. "Before I left, I asked him to investigate the people involved."

"I'll get to the bottom of this." Charlotte nodded.

This time, she agreed without the slightest hesitation.

That evening, Gordon returned to the dissection room in the Biomedical Building.

The Silver Fish Holy Casket sat quietly on the laboratory bench, sealed shut.

[Casket. Do not disturb it.]

Gordon put on gloves, carefully extracted a sample, added precipitation salt, and placed it under the fluorescent lamp to measure it.

The droplet displayed an unusually full contour.

Judging by its spiritual response, the concentration of "womb amniotic fluid" was rising and would peak within the week.

Gordon's heartbeat gradually quickened. Only after checking the records three times did he slowly breathe out.

The gestation was nearing its end.

He felt like a part-time obstetrician, with the baby's head already showing.

After such a long wait, so many risks, and attracting a pack of lunatics who wanted to shove him into the river, this thing was finally about to repay him.

It would finish condensing before his eyes, and in all of Lundenim, he alone would know what it was at the very instant of its birth.

The door hinge suddenly gave a soft creak. Charlotte had arrived.

She had returned to the university that night.

This was also her first visit to the dissection room.

It was truly...unbelievable.

The air held a mixture of preservative and blood.

She saw scalpels, bone saws, graduated bottles, and laboratory records filled with data. She also saw the old wooden bench against the wall where Gordon slept.

It was merely a plank on which a person could temporarily park his body before getting up at dawn to attend classes again.

He slept and worked here every day...sticking his hands into those strange things. He did not even have time to plead poverty; he simply kept finding ways to earn money. The thought deepened Charlotte's sympathy.

"Good evening." Gordon did not turn around. He had smelled her perfume.

"Good evening. I saw that casket." Charlotte frowned slightly. "So this is where it is. Can you destroy it? It's far too dangerous."

"No." Gordon held both hands behind his back. "It entered the school and was registered. It's now an entirely legal hazardous object. Besides, it's worth hundreds of gold pounds, possibly more."

Charlotte found a clean patch of tabletop and set down a pile of documents from Butler Evans and the servants at the ancestral estate.

"We found the most suspicious person," Charlotte said.

"I'm all ears."

"An old servant, Harold Wade," she said.

Something stirred in Gordon's heart.

Harold Wade.

At last, the enemy's name had surfaced from the water.

Charlotte spread out the documents she had organized herself.

They contained interviews and duty rosters, sorted by date and category and, in keeping with Charlotte's aesthetic tastes, tied with ribbons of different colors.

"He was there the night you came. He might even have spoken to you. After the Blackgill Gang slaughtered the Deepclaw Demons, he quietly left. I suspect you ruined all his plans."

"Did the other servants have any impressions of this Harold?"

She opened several record sheets.

"He always said he was thirsty, but he would vomit after drinking water. He liked staying in the laundry room, the basement, and near the water pipes. Before his night shifts, Harold often put his hands into a basin of cold water and left them there for half an hour."

"No one reported it?"

"The servants just thought it was an eccentricity," Charlotte said. "Everyone has habits that aren't worth putting in a report."

"Fish freaks tend to have quite a few little quirks."

"He spoke very slowly and was unusually sensitive to loud noises. The clatter of silverware made him angry. Our cook also said he didn't care about roast meat or beer, only whether that day's water had been drawn from the Blackwater River."

"What about the Silver Fish Casket?" Gordon asked curiously.

"Here." Charlotte pointed to several reports. "Harold helped move things in the storeroom. He showed a 'strange enthusiasm' for the Silver Fish Casket. When the ancestral estate's displays were rearranged a month ago, the casket was placed in one of the most prominent spots in the collection room. Someone also saw him talking to it in the middle of the night."

"What did he say?"

"She couldn't make it out. She only said it sounded like he was apologizing."

"And then the Silver Fish Casket was moved to tears," Gordon said.

"Finally, he found an octopus-face to watch you and hurt you," Charlotte said.

Gordon went over the clues again.

Harold had disguised himself as a servant of the Montfort family. He had seen Gordon on the night of the incident, could match his name to his face, and might even have had the skill to draw that face.

Harold cared about the Deepclaw Demons, knew where the Holy Casket had gone, and had the means to deliver orders to one of the Wet-Foot People.

The person, the motive, the channels-it all lined up.

"Harold has already sent someone after me," Gordon said. "If that thing had killed me, the police would have written me up as a victim of a dispute between outsiders. Professor Winslow would have frowned, and Peter would have collected my body. You might have been very upset."

"Of course I would have been upset!" Charlotte blurted out.

Her voice sounded especially clear in the cold dissection room.

She froze, instinctively raising a hand to hide her cheeks behind her fan, only to remember that she had rushed over tonight without bringing one.

Deprived of her social prop, Miss Montfort could only stand beneath the light and let those words linger in the air.

"I'm the one who brought you into this," she said quietly.

"I earned thirty-five gold pounds. From a financial standpoint, I have no regrets," Gordon said.

If poor people did not dare seize opportunities boldly, they would remain poor forever.

Gordon leaned back, closed his eyes, and slowly worked through the possibilities.

Whatever else might be true, Gordon still disliked being in a situation where someone knew what he looked like and had a motive to come after him.

Octopus-face had not returned alive. This Harold surely knew the operation had failed.

His next attempt might be more cunning and more covert, making it even harder to guard against!

Rather than be the prey, Gordon would prefer to be the hunter.

"He can find me in a sea of people, and I'll find him in that same sea. He's already given me every reason to kill him," Gordon said.

"Go looking for Harold? But he's a bad man, a Cultist," Charlotte said. "It's too dangerous."

"Finding him doesn't mean fighting him head-on. I just want the initiative. He sent octopus-face after me, so I'll send Vera after him. Perfectly reasonable. Besides, he specifically asked to buy a giant clam shell. Who knows what he's planning?" Gordon said.

Charlotte suddenly stepped closer.

She did not maintain the safe social distance of an aristocratic young lady as she normally did. Leaning forward slightly, she caught both of Gordon's hands in hers.

Her hands were so warm and so soft, and they were trembling.

Gordon's hands still bore traces of salt and chemical reagents. Her gloves were so expensive, yet now she pressed them against those stains without caring in the slightest.

He was suddenly caught off guard.

He could not read a name, there was no description of its use, and there was no danger warning. Nothing could tell him what she was thinking now.

"I don't want to be a fool who only watches from the sidelines, then hears about all the dangerous or frightening things you did once everything is over," Charlotte said. "Now, at this very moment, if there's anything I can do...just tell me."

Gordon thought for a moment.

"I need to find a safe house," Gordon said. "With escape routes, somewhere to hide things and conduct experiments, and nowhere near the river."

Compared with the dilapidated dissection room, where Winslow and Peter could see anything he did, Gordon badly needed somewhere he could work undisturbed.

"What else?" Charlotte asked.

"One more thing." Gordon recalled what Vera had said, though somehow it sounded a little strange. "It needs room for two."