Klein stepped out of the washroom, crossed the quaintly furnished living room, and went outside.
Looking at the unfamiliar Small Town before him, he felt a chill in his heart. I've already spent four days in this strange place... But if Edward hadn't prayed just now, letting me go above the gray fog and remember everything, I'm afraid the longer I stayed, the less I'd remember. I might even... forget about the space above the gray fog!
Four days. That means this week's Tarot Club gathering didn't take place as scheduled. Miss Justice and the others must think something happened to Mr. Fool...
He took a deep breath and calmed the unease in his heart.
But Edward seemed to say I'd disappeared a day ago... Does time flow differently here?
Four days ago, as he perceived it, Klein had gone to the Lime Bar in the Backlund Bridge borough to look for Baelen. Only when he arrived did he discover that the bar had closed two days earlier. People were searching everywhere for its owner-these people were all Baelen's subordinates.
He then learned from Baelen's subordinates that Baelen had headed to the outskirts that morning, so he followed him all the way out, only to suddenly find himself in a world of swirling snow.
He knew perfectly well that it couldn't snow in Backlund this time of year. Either he had unknowingly arrived in the far north, thousands of miles away, or he had fallen into a dream.
He tried divining above the gray fog, but the information was too vague to yield anything. Then he divined a way to leave, but he barely managed to see a face so blurred he couldn't tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman before the dream abruptly collapsed.
So