One hastily put together but still hearty dinner-slash-breakfast later, the three sat around the coffee table drinking hot cups of tea.
"So, just to make sure I’m getting this right," began Misha, "what happened was soone - we don’t know who - made a Coil all the way around the old location of the Kowloon Walled City park, dragging in all the surrounding buildings, and reshaping them into the actual Walled City. Then they put a guardian in there to make sure it kept on existing, so when we defeated that guardian, the Coil disappeared, and the space went back to normal."
Bran nodded at Misha’s summary. "You have the main points down, although, on the topic of guardians, the person who made the Coil didn’t actually specify the guardian, the guardian was a naturally occuring part of the Coil due to how transparent it was."
"...Right."
"Do you rember Coral’s dream-Coil and the grey walls in it? That was a guardian too," said Bran.
"Oh! So in the little girl’s Coil...?" asked Misha.
"Now that I’m not sure about," replied Bran.
"None of us were in the Coil for very long," Athyst interjected. "It is possible that, had we remained longer, it would have appeared."
"I see..." said Misha. "Okay, this might be a stupid question but... why did no one notice?" This had been the number one thing bothering him. Well, the number two thing. The number one thing was Bran and how their knees were almost touching.
"Dream logic," replied Bran. "Or at least, sothing like it."
"You an... in the mont, you think it’s normal, but once you wake up - or in this case leave - you realise sothing was wrong? But surely people have been going in and out of the Walled City. I an, heck, we’ve been going in and out, why didn’t we know?"
"For you and , it’s a little different: you haven’t been here for a long ti so you just assud that what you’d learnt over the years about the city was wrong, for ... I knew as soon as I saw the Walled City that it was a Coil," said Bran.
"Why didn’t you do tell ? No wait, if you had, then the guardian would have appeared..." muttered Misha.
"Right. And at that point in ti, you couldn’t even control your transformations."
"True." Misha took a sip of tea. "But couldn’t you have done sothing about it at that ti? You had your sword back then too."
Bran sighed and leaned back on his hands. "Yeah, I kind of regret leaving it so late, but I did that because I thought I should wait and find out more first. Besides, I only found out that there was a Coil when I was already in it. The Coil covers the train station too."
Misha thought back to when they first arrived. It had been evening and, yes, Bran was right - the Walled City was right on top of the train station and there was no way of knowing beforehand the state of the outside before going out. What a difficult custor.
"But to answer your question about other people coming and going-" began Bran.
Athyst set her empty cup of tea on the coffee table. "I believe I can help with that."
"Oh?"
Misha leaned forward and poured her another cup. "How so?"
Athyst smiled and tapped her fingers on the table in thanks. "You recall the last day we t, the day we went to the wetlands."
"Yeah," said Misha. "Then you scarpered."
Athyst gave a little cough and took a sip of tea. "I did not ’scarper’," she said a little hautily. "I was rely delayed."
"Ah, you went to the hospital," said Bran.
Athyst nodded.
"What hospital?" asked Misha.
"You recall the little girl in the Coil, the one you helped find? Cheung Hiu Fa? Her grandfather was sent to hospital after being found slashed rather badly at ho. I went to visit him."
"Oh, he’s that friend you ntioned then," said Misha.
"You have a good mory," replied the woman, "but I should admit now that I was not being entirely truthful. I had never t the man before, nor had I t the child before, but I can still claim to know them to a certain extent, or at least, I know their blood." She brushed a handful of her long hair behind her shoulder and continued. "Years ago, long before even your parents were born, I was a courtesan, a dancer, and I had a love. He was an official, not a high ranking one, but one all the sa, not that I cared. As you have likely surmised, he was already with wife and when I bore him a child..."
The woman sighed and a sudden coldness filled the small room.
"His wife was barren, you see, but he needed an heir. My child, my son, was to be that heir, not that I knew it at the ti." She smiled gently as she looked out the window at the opposite end of the room. "I knew of the wife, but my love promised to be by my side when the ti was ripe and indeed, he did co. But instead of holding my hand he took his sword and slit my throat and took my son."
She sighed, composed herself and turned back to her audience.
"But you do not want to hear of misfortunes from another ti. To put the matter simply, the grandfather and his granddaughter are descendants of myself and my cruel love, which was why I seeked them out."
"To do what?" asked Bran. Misha had a sneaking suspicion he knew.
"Originally, I thought that to detach myself from this world, I must satisfy my longing for revenge against the cruelty, but..." Athyst’s voice trailed off at this point and the temperature of the room gradually returned to normal. Misha glanced at Bran.
"You didn’t kill him," stated Bran.
Athyst shook her head. "I saw a resemblence, a strong resemblence, yet in talking to him I imdiately knew in my spirit that he was different. Sa blood, yet still different. So I spared him. And now I can return to answer your question, little dragon."
"Eh?" Misha had been so swept up in the gu-huo-niao’s sad story that he’d forgotten his original question.
"The old man told of the night his granddaughter disappeared," said Athyst. "He said that ’the walls lted and hell rose up’."
"That sounds like it was the night the Coil went up then," said Misha.
"Indeed. Perhaps by so quirk of fate, both grandfather and granddaughter have a certain affinity for the mystic arts and it was this that caused their eyes to not be clouded when the changes occurred."
Misha frowned. "But..."
"You asked why those who enter and exit the Walled City are not disturbed by its presence," interrupted Bran. "The answer is quite simple. It did not occur to them. Those who were inside the area of the Coil when it went up just thought it had always been that way. People on the outside who saw it, were also affected in that way since it did not occur to them that sothing so impossible could happen. The sa thing went for people going in and out."
"You say it ’did not occur’, so what would end up happening if it did occur?" asked Misha.
"That is what happened to ." It was Athyst who replied this ti. "Because the old man told that the Walled City should not exist, the knowledge that sothing was wrong entered my mind, so when I tried to return, I found myself unable to enter."
"So that’s why we didn’t see you for so long!"
"It is," said Athyst with a nod. "And because I continuously tried to penetrate the Coil, I ended up in a liminal space halfway between the real world and the Coil, unable to escape."
Thankfully the sun had risen by this point and a warm light gently flowed through the living room’s single set of windows.
The woman reached into her shawls and pulled out a few crumpled pieces of paper. "While I was in that in between space, I found a few ssenger birds that I believe are addressed to you," she said, holding out the papers to Bran.
Bran took them and smoothed them out. "Thank you," he said.
Misha leaned over and saw that one was from Tuesday while another was from a person he didn’t know: Malcolm Best.
"You are welco," replied Athyst. The woman was still elegant with her shawls and thin fingers, but there was a deeper dishevelnt, and it made Misha hope he never had to see what it was like in the space between a Coil and the real world.
"What are your plans now?" Bran asked as he folded up his correspondence and slipped it into his pocket.
The gu-huo-niao smiled at him then at Misha. "Do not worry, I do not plan to abuse your hospitality."
"But where will you go?" asked Misha.
Athyst laughed. "Anywhere," she said. "Everywhere. I have been tied down to this place for too long, ever since I was... reborn into this body I have been tethered to this land and to the cruelty that had been done to . But now, that has changed, and I have the two of you to thank for that." As she said this, she moved back from the table and, kneeling, bowed to Bran and Misha.
Flustered, Misha helped Athyst back up again, telling her that ’it was no trouble’ and ’was what anyone would have done’, but to that the woman rely smiled that half-shaded smile.
"If you need help, the SSD will give it," said Bran. "You only have to ask."
"I will consider it," replied Athyst. The first ti Helen had brought up the sa kind of offer, Athyst’s body language had clearly stated that she would never do such a thing, but this ti her body said sothing different. It was a complete reversal, but there was hope that perhaps she would be able to move past whatever wrongs the rlin Club had enacted on her in the past.
But not today.
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