“Forget-me-not, 3rd o’clock, two Faustus, unarmed, not casting,” a voice whispered in Siyunese, familiar and somewhat comforting, it was Parsley. He poked Suiming from the seat behind him, though he couldn’t see that blackboard-serious face of his, he could probably guess his bland reaction. He started to feel that he was dragged into a whirlpool the moment a member of the Brotherhood came unwanted. Four flowers in one train…that’s not a good omen.

  Before he answered Parsley, Suiming peeked in that direction. On the lightly cushioned seat sat two people in white, with no significant features or any other identification. In the very corner obscured by the clothes, Suiming noticed a tattoo extending to the corner of the man’s chiseled chin. The rune’s dim light- Suiming guessed that the connection there might be weaker than other parts- glossed their silhouettes. Though Suiming always had the yarn of all sorts of opinions and dislikes to the School of Faust in his gut, this time he felt like avoiding troubles, but just out of caution, he’d keep an eye on them. Facing them again meant facing himself.

  “That’s all? Restful night then, my dear stranger,” Suiming whispered back as he picked up his book again, flipping to the middle of it where the Outsider served as a bookmark. He played with the feather in his hand, like toying with a toothpick in the middle of a feast. The smell of cigarettes lingered, frustrating him, but kept as a reminder that there are things beyond himself that can plague the way cigarettes do.

  “You were not this carefree last time,” Parsley said, the last syllable dropped as Suiming heard coins drop and roll to him. Two beaten, wrinkled copper coins with values impossible to read, as if they had just been dug out of an excavation site, lay on the smudged ground. He picked them up, feeling their smooth texture. He felt like he was a giant, glazing his fingers at the mountains and rivers. Suiming figured the side he was looking at was the side that had the indication of some kind of flowery symbol, possibly a lotus, and the other- the value.

  “The gift may be light, but my wish is heavy, take them,” Parsley said.

  Having put them in his pocket, Suiming said:

  “I’m not carefree, have a rest, Parsley, I’ll watch the night.”

  He glanced over to the two people in white. Stale posture, faceless from his direction. The shadows clawed in their folds were pinning his eyes. As he glared in their direction, the light above flickered. At first, Suiming thought he was making things up, but then he noticed the runes began to dim. Ghostly light engraved blinked, and ghostly sparks of green and blue poured out from the runes. As the lights vomited all their brightness, the train came to a sudden halt. Loud noises, similar to a marching drum’s beat, were coming from the outside, accompanied by the scratching of the train. Beer bottles, keys, open luggage bags- all came down, crashing onto the ground while the child, who was safely guarded by her mother, cried. Suiming held the pen in his hand, pinching it as his nail nibbled his finger as he clung to the edge of his seat. His heart was somewhat accelerating, at least he thought so; he’d be sure it was the faustus. Seren slowly balanced herself up, combing her hair to her ear, still half-asleep. Suiming glanced at Acryl’s direction, wondering if he and Neon were hurt. Seeing both of them away, with no bruises and only a frowning, confused expression, he paid his attention back to the faustus, who still sat in their unmoved posture.

  “Suiming?” Acryl said, his voice trembling, trembling in a tone that he had only heard from those with great fear and desire to return to the bliss of ignorance. Suiming turned to Acryl, ready to cast his Realm-art. The pain in his abdomen spiked as his eyes opened wide. Suiming felt the scent that he despised more than cigarettes- the smothering, worse than rotten eggs and trash dumps scent of Existences. Acryl was bleeding, his face horrified, the wound was not a scratch nor a stab, but dots. Tiny dots scattered the entire surface of his left arm, in a similar pattern to the star-mansions. Heck, Suiming could see some of the constellations on Acryl’s arm.

  “That’s not your blood,” Seren said, reaching for her pen. She held the tip of the fountain pen to the waterfall of crimson. The scarlet simmered through the tip as they burned the same flame of Seren’s Realm-art. Though the colors were the same, dark blue, the light was different, lacking the tenderness of Seren’s flame, but full of fierceness and spite. The same flame that burned in the War. It was the power of The Starhue, Seren’s pen, turning liquid into flame.

  “Do you want me to turn back the clock?” Seren asked, turning to Suiming. He took a breath, trying to convince himself that it would be fine, trying to convince himself that he still could have done something, that it was not too late. Before Suiming could say anything, Neon acted first. Her Realm-art wrapped around Acryl’s wound, lightly shining its soft light, stopping the blood.

  “Seren, can you guard the place? I’ll check what happened outside.”

  “If you say so,” Seren said, having tied her hair behind her. Her hand reached for the sword wrapped in cloth, hidden in her luggage case beneath the seats. Suiming felt like he was in that aircraft again, the wind blowing against his face, heat scorching his skin, but something was different. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact thing that made him feel that way, perhaps it was Parsley, perhaps it was Acryl and Neon…and perhaps it was simply the excitement and anxiety of setting sail for the next island in his voyage.

  The Faustus. Always them, always those who are wrapped in the clothes of scholarship, those who view the Existences as saviors, those who abandoned their humanity to seek power from the Existences. Suiming walked from his seat to the end of the train coach, past the passengers still comprehending what was going on, past the two people in white, past the unbearable smell of cigarettes and spilled-out beer mixed with other trash. He put his hand on the train’s door, cold biting into him. Suiming turned the doorknob open, peeking his head as he cast his Realm-art. The pain in his abdomen was still persistent, surges of pain came and went like rain in summer. The light from the stars lit the place around him. Rain painted white by the starlight, and the train, the train that has ceased its movement, its metal body deformed like an aluminum can, discarded and forsaken. Suiming couldn’t see the train’s head or the previous wagons, but he could see a few figures in yellow. At first, he thought his mind was tricking him, but then he sensed a wave of casting.

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  “The troupe…” he whispered as the yellow figures approached him, footsteps silent, some of them holding dramatically sized or overly decorated weapons while the others held musical instruments, they wore heavy cosmetics, faces painted in different colors, melting under the rain.

  “Nice costumes you’ve got there, eh? But just making sure, you’ve got nothing to do with Nameless, no?” he said, watching the painted faces of them.

  “Hand over the crown,” they said in unison.

  “I don’t have it,” he answered, raising his hands up.

  “Hand over the crown,” their voice echoed, taking their instruments off their back.

  “Darn it, are you deaf? I don’t have no crown.”

  “We’ll take it then.”

  Detuned music started playing as Suiming observed them, none of the people drew their weapons, only one source of casting among them. Strings and drums started to wail, and then a series of tremolo pierced in as one of them pulled a talisman out of their sleeve.

  Suiming breathed in, the Outsider ready to write as he glanced in the direction of the train. Hope nothing goes wrong for them. The talisman burnt blue flames, and the twisting tune continued playing as Suiming felt he was being watched, watched on a stage by many faceless audience.

  On the third beat of the bar, the one standing nearest to Suiming swung their spear, dodging it, and another one stabbed in with a sword that Suiming parried with a shot from the Outsider.

  Starting on a new bar, right on the first beat, Suiming charged back with strikes of the Outsider, writing down words and words of poem recitals and idioms. While scribing, he couldn’t help but think about whether he looked embarrassed, writing with his handwriting.

  Having dodged and parried another few strikes, he stepped back as he let out a ring of constellations to hold the distance. Their greatswords and spears rained down on him while the stinging stares of no one made him feel staggered. He manifested a dome of stars, writing down a longer passage with his quill pen. The stars did bind the weapons in the shine, but Suiming was stuck in his own Realm-art.

  As the music continued to scratch his ears, he found himself surrounded by the figures playing the instruments, unbothered that the strings were untuned, that the bows had no rosin, and that their facial paints washed down onto their clothes.

  Despite that, Suiming continued his writing, his fingers trembling, curious about who the caster was and why he, as someone who doesn’t get stage fright, felt like he was so nervous from all those eyes. Another few talismans burnt, bright like Suiming’s stars, their ashes expanded into uncountable needles that flew toward Suiming. He quickly ducked and continued writing with his arms guarding his face. Having endured the pain of those needles, Suiming felt a tingle of Realm-art.

  Gotcha.

  He immediately removed the dome of stars as if wiping everything off a blackboard to draw a new graph. Stars faded. The yellowcoats, having dramatically removed their weapon from the bind, and winding the swords, watched Suiming in their rehearsed awed face as Suiming dashed, putting a period on his passage. The light boomed, breaking the formation, like a tiny star that bloomed on the land. He closed his eyes, listening to the sizzle of rain steaming away. The light reminded him of the Realm-art he had, creating scaled-down stars, drawing things into their orbits, and tearing them into dust, though that power was gone, Suiming felt like perhaps such cruel and destructive Realm-art didn’t suit him.

  Suiming could feel the heat of that blow, he could feel that he was closer to the caster.

  That musician standing in the corner, that musician playing the two-stringed fiddle, wearing lifeless white paint. Cosmetics warped and twisted, obscuring the face behind. His waves of casting were still there. Suiming’s index finger drew a line of stars as he threw it at the musician. His other hand blasted the musician with spontaneous strikes from the Outsider. The stars of calamity shot the musician’s shoulder, a comet slashing the sky in half. That detuned, twisted tune stopped, and the echoing of the cymbal and drum disappeared as the tremolo let out its last sigh. Only a few of the figures wielding weapons remained unchanged.

  “Why…” the musician said, holding his hand against the wound. Blood poured out as Suiming saw tiny sprouts of flesh twisting out of the wound. Blooming on his skin and sealing it. His voice was quiet, almost hissing yet arrogant at the same time, mostly covered by the drumming of the rain. The bow fell out of his hand as the fiddle rolled on the ground, rain and wind echoing from its chamber.

  “Why what? Speak louder,” Suiming said, approaching him as he wrote with the Outsider. The wave of casting did not disappear, it still swung at Suiming.

  “The court made you…but why are you against me?” he said as he raised his head. Voice loud and dramatic, accent on words as if he was performing a play, louder than the rain and Suiming’s heartbeat. His eyes reflected the light of the moon. Though Suiming couldn’t see any longing in that man’s eyes, but a desire. A great greed that wanted the moon to only shine for him.

  “The court? You’ve got the wrong man, I ain’t a dog of the Silu court.”

  “You speak with ignorance as someone who made the three crowns.”