"Strange."
Standing at the lakeside, Sosia tilted her head in curiosity, staring at the clear water in front of her.
She could feel it: the water in the lake was refusing to communicate with her. It rejected every attempt she made to reach out, every request she sent into its depths.
That was extrely odd. As a spirit of springs, she should have been able to connect with any flow of water. After the lessons from that Dark Lord lady, she could even sense and command water in other states and forms.
In all her life, she had only ever felt this kind of rejection once before, back when the lake monster in the Great Lake of the Orléans Forest had still been there. And even then, it had not been as obvious as what she was feeling now.
Could there be sothing inside this building that was even more frightening than that lake monster?
But her current strength was nothing like it had been back then. With all the strange bonuses from Evans's bizarre talents, even if she ran into that lake monster alone now, she was confident she could at least hold her own.
"There isn't so incredible, terrifying big thing hiding in there, is there?"
Sosia crouched down and poked a finger into the lake. Aside from the faint ripples that spread from where she touched, the surface remained calm and still.
There was nothing about it that suggested so terrifying, powerful creature lived below.
"Wuu..."
The huge Chira crouched on the shore beside her. Its tail was tucked in close, and it kept casting wary glances all around, like it expected danger to spring out at any second.
"You really don't look like a powerful magical beast right now."
She ran a hand over the Chira's back, the coarse hair like that of a black mountain goat, and asked curiously, "So how did you run into the curse last ti? You felt weak all over the mont you ca in? And now, do you feel anything at all?"
"Awroo!"
The giant beast shook its head, but fear still clouded its expression.
"Co on, don't be scared, relax!"
Seeing the huge beast cower like that, Sosia reached out and patted its head in a big‑sisterly, careless way. "With here, as long as that curse has anything to do with water, there is no way it can affect you."
"Wuu-aoo?"
At her words, the Chira did not relax. It only let out a small, uncertain whine, as if asking a question.
"What if the curse has nothing to do with water, you an?" Sosia scratched her cheek, thinking. "Mm... there should... probably... still be a way to deal with it, right?"
After hearing that, the Chira fell silent. It took two more steps back, wrapped its front paws over its head, and went right back to shivering.
"What are you so scared of? Curses don't skip you just because you are afraid of them."
Sosia pouted in mild annoyance, then glanced again at the lake in front of her. All at once she lifted her arm and looked down at the silver‑white mark that had just begun to glow on her skin.
Her eyes lit up.
"Almost forgot I still had this!" she said happily.
She closed her fingers lightly. A water‑blue sigil shimred to life above her palm, and a line of writing gradually appeared within it.
[I have found the Great Lake! But where have you all gone?]
The silver‑white mark flickered for a mont. Another line of text slowly ford.
[It might be a bit hard to explain for the mont, but we are all quite safe. You found the Great Lake?]
[Yes! The lake is absurdly huge, but for so reason I cannot seem to control the water in it, just like back in the Orléans Forest.]
[Aside from that, though, it does not feel dangerous here at all. According to the big fellow, last ti it felt its body go weak the mont it ca in, but this ti, after all this ti, it still does not feel weak at all.]
[Maybe that curse is already gone!]
The silver letters pulsed, the strokes of the handwriting carrying a faint sense of helplessness from the one writing them.
[You had better still be careful. If nothing unexpected happens, we should be finished here in a few hours at most. You and the Chira should find sowhere to hide and just wait for us to et up.]
Sosia twirled a lock of hair around her finger, bored, as she shaped new letters in the glowing mark.
[What on earth are you all doing? Can you tell a little? I am really curious!]
After she wrote that, the silver‑white text paused for a while, as though the person on the other end were trying to decide how to explain things.
But while Sosia waited, the Chira beside her suddenly let out a roar of sheer terror.
"What is it, what is it?"
The girl spun around at once, then slowly felt her jaw drop.
Above the lake, at so point, a massive swarm of giant insects had appeared. They looked like mosquitoes, yet were many tis larger. They stared down with scarlet eyes, looking as though they could dive and attack at any second.
Staring up at the enormous cloud of mosquito‑things stretching so far she could not see the end of it, Sosia scratched her head and muttered under her breath, "Uh... having mosquitoes by the lake at night is perfectly normal, right?"
The next instant, her whole body burst apart into countless streams of water, which wrapped around the Chira that was still staring up at the sky and swept it away into the distance.
"Keep staring and see what happens! Those are definitely not normal mosquitoes. If you keep looking, you are going to get sucked dry!"
Night.
In the Auror Office of the Norwegian Ministry of Magic, Halstein Moi, Captain of the Auror squad, had finally finished for the day. He leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.
"Finally done."
Over Christmas, the workload for the Auror Office had multiplied several tis over. Norway was not exactly a famous tourist destination in the wizarding world, but that did nothing to offset the massive tide of travelling witches and wizards Christmas always brought.
Every morning, he had to lead a team on a patrol through the whole Ministry of Magic. After that, there were the stacks of paperwork piled up like little mountains on the office desks. In the middle of processing those, if any dispute broke out near the Ministry that required Auror intervention, he had to gather a squad and rush out to deal with it.
Even after he had seconded several clerks from idle posts like the Office of Ghost Affairs, he still had to work until deep into the night every single day just to barely keep up.
At this mont, he almost missed the days when the Dark Lord had still been alive. Back then, the whole of Europe had been gripped by fear. There were hardly any tourists even at Christmas, and since the Dark Lord's main theatre of activity had been Britain, their own duties had mostly consisted of turning up on ti and patrolling the imdiate surroundings.
Those really had been easy days. A pity they would never return.
Halstein shook his head, tidying his things while his gaze drifted lazily over his desk.
Thoughts like that were ones he only dared entertain in the privacy of his own mind. If he ever voiced such an opinion aloud, he would be reported in no ti and lose the position he had worked so hard to win.
"Hm? What is this?"
A long sheet of parchnt suddenly caught his eye. It was covered in nas, divided into several broad categories by country and age.
"A list? Traveller records...?"
He picked up the parchnt and scanned it, then rembered. Right, he had told his subordinates earlier to put together a list of all current visitors.
Thinking back to what had happened in the Floo Hall, Halstein spread the parchnt flat on his desk and began reading the nas carefully.
"Gaute Helle, Jarle Hrum..."
His gaze slid down the list na by na, then suddenly stopped. His eyes locked onto one entry, and a distant, unfocused look crept into them.
That na reminded him of a heavy commission he had taken on many years ago.
"Penelo Krivat?"
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