A few seconds later, Edward took off the Invisibility Cloak and walked over from the corner with Susie. "Miss Daly, could you sense me?"
"I just saw your cat and took a guess." She pointed at Lilith, who lay nearby with an innocent expression.
Lilith looked puzzled. "Meow?"
"Uh, all right."
Edward sat down beside Audrey. "You and Captain..."
Daly coughed. "Actually, I stayed behind specifically to ask you lovebirds about a few related issues."
Lovebirds?
The two exchanged a glance, and Audrey glared at him. Who's his lovebird?!
Daly continued, "Actually, my relationship with Dunn is both simple and complicated. It's simple because we both know how the other feels now. But it's complicated because our respective experiences and personalities keep us from taking that step."
"Actually, I know the problem mostly lies with me."
Daly's eyes dimmed a little. "Last time, carried away by the impulse that came after narrowly escaping death, he intended to confess to me. But at the time... I instinctively avoided it-avoided the courage he'd finally managed to muster."
"But he clearly misunderstood, so our relationship has been at a standstill ever since. I really regret avoiding it then, but I also know... if it happened again, I'd very likely make the same choice. Because... I once..." Daly could not bring herself to say the rest.
Edward, however, knew very well what Daly feared and felt inferior about.
When Daly was nineteen, she had lost her family in an accident and mistakenly consumed a Corpse Collector Potion. The repeated accidents and trauma, coupled with the Potion's influence, had made her begin to enjoy cold, gloomy sensations and being close to corpses. She was always wandering through cemeteries and sleeping in front of graves.
This had made her heart and soul grow increasingly cold as