The three of us did not walk side by side.
That would stand out too much.
I went first.
Mia followed a few steps behind, hugging her book.
Farther back, Erka walked deliberately slowly, carrying the metal box.
The corridor with the inner staircase was strangely quiet, even though it was daytime.
It wasn’t as if there was no one there at all.
A student in Sanctuary robes passed by, and an elderly custodian walked the other way carrying a bucket.
No one lingered.
Everyone just passed through.
I walked right past the stairs.
Once.
The doorframe.
The railing.
The floor.
The corner of the wall.
I took them in as I went by.
The second time, I dropped my handkerchief.
It fell right in front of the stairway entrance.
I bent down to pick it up.
In that brief moment, I looked at the stair treads.
The first step was ordinary.
The second was decent enough too.
Only the third was different.
Its edge was unusually smooth and glossy.
There was dust on the railing beside the stairs.
But the wall below the railing was clean.
That was not a height where people’s hands often touched.
It was a height something often brushed against.
A box.
A stretcher.
Or a person’s arm.
Good.
I picked up the handkerchief, put it in my pocket, and kept walking.
Mia, who had been following behind, paused for a moment in front of the stairs.
She did not stop for even a single breath.
But her ears perked up.
As Erka passed by Mia, she deliberately dropped the metal box.
Clang.
The sound was louder than expected.
A Sanctuary aide at the end of the corridor looked this way.
Erka immediately bent down with an irritated expression.
“Ah, seriously.”
It was natural.
Rather than acting, that was just her usual personality.
Pretending to pick up the box, Erka ran her fingertips along the underside of the doorframe.
With her fingernail, she lightly tapped between wood and wood.
Tap.
Tap.
The third sound was different.
Low and thin.
Erka’s eyes changed.
We continued around the end of the corridor and slipped over toward an empty window.
Only when we reached a place out of sight did Mia speak first.
“Medicine smell.”
“What kind of medicine?”
“Disinfectant. Dried grass. Oil.”
“Oil?”
“Yeah. The kind that gets on Sanctuary aides’ hands.”
Dried medicinal herbs.
Disinfectant.
A slick smell that might have been holy oil or just oil.
Things like that were always faintly clinging to the hems of the Sanctuary aides’ clothes.
Mia wrinkled her nose.
“But there’s something strange underneath.”
“What is it?”
“A pressed-down smell.”
“What exactly is that?”
Mia thought for a moment.
“The smell of wiping away a smell?”
“If you wipe it away, shouldn’t there be no smell?”
“No.”
Mia shook her head.
“Um... the place where the smell was doesn’t smell like soap, and it doesn’t smell like fragrance either. It’s just a place where something was pushed away.”
Her words were strange, but I understood.
When a room where someone had been is cleaned too perfectly, it actually becomes obvious.
It seemed smells worked the same way.
Erka tucked the metal box back under her arm.
“The doorframe is strange too.”
“What about it?”
“It looks like a wooden door, but there’s a metal plate reinforced on the inside.”
“Couldn’t they have reinforced an old door?”
“If it were reinforcement, they’d plate the hinge side or the lock side.”
Erka tapped the back of her own hand with a finger.
“But that was the lower inside of the doorframe.
Somewhere ordinary people wouldn’t look.”
“Why would they plate that?”
“Because something often brushes against it, or because it takes force from the inside.”
Erka cut herself off.
“Or because they’re using something that isn’t a door as if it were one.”
I looked back toward the stairs.
At that moment, the edge of my vision darkened for a very brief instant.
The edge of the third step.
And the inside of the threshold.
A thin black line hung there.
It did not last long.
It was faint enough to disappear if I blinked.
But it was enough.
If we went down now, we would get caught.
If we set a foot wrong, it might make a sound, or someone might come up from below, or the door might lock.
In any case, now was not the time.
I immediately turned around.
“Let’s go back.”
Mia followed without asking.
Erka looked at my face a beat late.
“Why?”
“Just a feeling.”
“Ugh, that feeling of yours always shows up.”
“You’re quick to talk.”
“One beastkin goes by smell, one person goes by feelings. How difficult.”
That was when it happened.
Footsteps came up from below the stairs.
Click.
Click.
One person.
The footsteps were too even.
Mia’s ears shot up.
I grabbed Mia by the shoulder and pushed her toward the wall.
Erka immediately hugged the metal box and pressed herself into the blind spot beside the window.
Behind the thick curtain hanging on the corridor wall.
Between the decorative columns beside the window.
I pressed myself behind a column.
The footsteps drew closer.
The one who came up the stairs was a woman.
She looked a little older than us.
The sleeves of her white aide uniform were neat, and her collar was not disheveled.
But the ends of her sleeves were wet.
Dark stains had soaked into the ends of the cloth, whether water or medicine.
When she finished climbing the stairs, I saw her right hand.
The inside of her wrist.
There was a red mark.
A thin pressed trace, as if a thread had been tied there and then untied.
She passed in front of us.
I thought she would just keep going.
But when she had almost reached the end of the corridor, she stopped.
For a very brief moment.
Her head turned halfway back.
She was not looking directly at us.
But she stopped for too long.
The tip of Mia’s tail stiffened under the curtain.
Erka swallowed her breath.
I did not move a single finger.
The Sanctuary aide looked forward again.
Then, as if nothing had happened, she walked away.
The footsteps receded.
Click.
Click.
Only after they disappeared completely did Mia come out from behind the curtain.
Her face was stiff.
“Senior.”
“What?”
“That person.”
Mia looked toward the end of the corridor.
“Her smell is thin.”
Erka said in a low voice,
“You saw it just now, right?”
“Her wrist?”
“Yes.”
“I saw.”
“It isn’t only the students who were dragged away that are being tied up.”
I did not answer.
I looked back toward the stairs.
So even the ones taking people away are tied to something.
The stairs were quiet again.
Mia was still looking toward the end of the corridor.
The tip of her tail slowly lowered, then stopped.
Her ears remained upright.
“Senior.”
“What?”
“That person’s smell.”
“You said it was thin.”
“Yeah.”
Mia wrinkled her nose slightly.
“She has a person’s smell, but only on the outside.”
“Only on the outside?”
“Yeah. It comes from her clothes and hands.”
Mia tapped her own chest with a finger.
“The inside is empty.”
I could not say I immediately understood what she meant.
But I understood that it was an unpleasant thing to hear.
Erka glanced that way too.
“Why are your explanations about smell always so unfriendly?”
Mia looked at Erka.
“Your explanations are long too.”
“At least I choose my words properly.”
“Smells don’t have words.”
“That’s a little hard to refute.”
They were at it again, even in this situation.
I turned my gaze toward the stairs.
“We’re not going down now.”
“You said we weren’t going down just now.”
Erka answered immediately.
“There’s no need to say it twice.”
“I wasn’t saying it to you.”
“Then who were you saying it to?”
“To me.”
Erka shut her mouth for a moment.
Mia looked at me.
I came fully out from behind the curtain and looked at the stairway entrance.
At the end of the corridor, two students passed by.
Neither of them paid any attention to us.
One was walking while reading a book, and the other had a piece of bread in his mouth.
I took out my handkerchief.
It was the same handkerchief I had dropped earlier.
I considered letting it fall once more in front of the stairs, then gave up.
Using the same trick twice would be stupid.
“Mia.”
“Yeah.”
“See if anything was left in front of the stairs. Don’t stand there too long.”
“Yeah.”
Mia moved immediately.
She did not run.
Her steps were not quick either.
She simply went toward the stairs while pretending to look out the window.
When she passed the stairway entrance, Mia’s hand brushed very briefly under the railing.
That was all.
She continued on and stood in front of the window at the end of the corridor.
Then she pretended to look outside.
Erka said quietly,
“She’s good.”
“At what?”
“Touching things secretly.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“An observation.”
“Don’t imitate Serena.”
“You mean Serena Arsein?”
Erka looked at me as if dumbfounded.
“You’re probably the only person who calls her like that.”
“You know her?”
“What student doesn’t know someone who’s like the model example of a ducal lady?”
“Model example?”
“Good grades, good family, even her manners are flawless.
She’s the kind of person who seems to live with the angle of her waist decided in advance whenever she speaks.”
“That’s pretty accurate.”
“Why are there only exhausting people around you?”
“I’d like to ask that myself.”
Mia returned.
Her hands were empty.
But as she passed beside me, something very small fell from inside her sleeve into my palm.
It was a thin strand of red thread.
It was truly small.
Not even the length of a finger joint.
Small enough that, at a glance, it looked like dust.
I placed it on the tip of my finger.
Red.
But not bright red.
It was a dull red, as if it had gotten wet and dried.
Erka’s eyes immediately narrowed.
“That.”
“Tch, you saw it?”
“Give it to me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“This isn’t the time to joke.”
I handed over the strand.
Erka took a thin glass plate out of her pocket.
She placed the thread on it.
After holding it up to the sunlight, she immediately frowned.
“It isn’t dyed thread.”
“What is it?”
“The color has soaked all the way into the fibers.
It wasn’t dyed on the surface.”
Mia moved her nose beside her.
“It doesn’t smell like blood.”
“I know.”
Erka answered at once.
“If it were blood, the color wouldn’t remain like this.”
“Then?”
“Medicinal ingredients and oil are mixed in. Just a little.”
Erka rolled the thread on the glass plate with the tip of a pin.
It was a small pin she had taken out of the metal box.
“And this isn’t thread that was tied in an ordinary way.”
“Why?”
“The end is strange.”
I looked at the end of the thread.
One end had not been cut.
It was flat, as if it had snapped after being pressed.
Had it broken while being forcibly untied from a wrist?
Erka tapped one side of the strand with the tip of the pin.
“It’s thread made so someone can tie it, untie it, and tie it again easily.”
“You can tell that from thread?”
“I can.”
Her answer was tinged with irritation.
“Thread pulled apart with fingernails and thread pressed and cut with a tool are different.”
Good.
For things like this, I really had no choice but to trust her.
Mia brought her face closer to the strand.
“Medicine smell.”
“You said that earlier.”
“No.”
Mia shook her head.
“It’s different from the medicine that was on their hands.”
“How?”
“This is medicine that stays for a long time.”
“Medicine that stays for a long time?”
“Yeah.”
Mia furrowed her brow.
“Something that still remains a little even if you wash it.”
Hearing that, Erka did not take her eyes off the thread.
“She may be right.”
“Why?”
“If something was soaked into the thread.”
She moved the thread back to the center of the glass plate.
“If it were just for tying, there would be no need to make it like this.”
Then Erka looked at me.
“So what is this red thread?”
“I told you I don’t know.”
“You looked like you knew a lot just now.”
“That’s why I’m trying to find out.”
“You can’t lie.”
“I’m good at it.”
“You’re not.”
Mia quietly joined in from the side.
“You’re not.”
“Why are you taking her side?”
“It smells.”
“You can smell lies too?”
“A little.”
I couldn’t tell whether she was serious or teasing me.
Erka carefully folded the strand.
“In any case, I think I need to examine this a little more.”
“You’re saying you’ll take it?”
“Then would you like to examine it?”
“No.”
Erka put the glass plate into the metal box.
The lid closed with a quiet sound.
Click.
Before that sound had even ended, Mia turned her head.
“Someone’s coming.”
We immediately stopped talking.
A custodian was walking from the opposite side of the corridor.
It was the same person who had passed by earlier carrying a bucket.
This time, the bucket was empty.
An empty bucket made a louder sound.
Clatter.
Clatter.
The custodian did not look at us.
But when he reached the stairs, his steps slowed for a very brief moment.
I lowered my head and pretended to look out the window.
Erka hugged the metal box and stood like a dissatisfied student.
Mia opened her book.
This time, it was facing the right way.
The custodian looked once at the lower wall beside the stairs.
Then he passed by.
That brief glance bothered me.
Does that person know too?
Or was he simply looking at the area he had to clean?
I couldn’t confirm it now.
Once the caretaker disappeared down the end of the corridor, Erka spoke in a very low voice.
“That person looked toward the stairs too.”
“I saw.”
“It’s not strange if he’s in charge of cleaning.”
“It’s even more suspicious because it isn’t strange.”
Mia lowered her book.
“The bucket smell.”
“What about it?”
“It’s different from earlier.”
“How is it different?”
“Earlier, it smelled like water. Now, it smells like medicine.”
I looked in the direction the caretaker had vanished.
An empty bucket.
The smell of medicine.
His steps slowing in front of the stairs.
Erka immediately frowned.
“You’re saying there was medicine on the bucket?”
Mia nodded.
“A little.”
“Then he might have wiped down the area below those stairs.”
“Or he wiped the area above.”
At my words, both of them looked at the stairs.
I decided not to stay any longer.
“That’s enough for today.”
Mia asked right away.
“The end?”
“During the day.”
“At night?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed.
“Lie.”
“Can you really smell that too?”
“I can tell by your expression.”
“That’s not a smell.”
“Similar.”
Erka sighed beside us.
“This really isn’t the time for you two to be talking about that.”
“Right.”
I looked at the metal box.
“Can you figure out what that thread is?”
“Not right now.
To examine it properly, I need light and heat.”
“You’re going to burn it?”
“Only a very little.”
Erka immediately added,
“I’m not going to burn it all.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I really want to hit you.”
“Get in line.”
“Who else is there?”
“A lot.”
Erka looked utterly dumbfounded.
Mia quietly said beside me,
“I won’t hit you.”
“Thanks.”
“Instead, I’ll bite.”
“I hate that even more.”
Mia’s ears moved ever so slightly.
I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or if she meant it.
We split up.
Mia went first, toward the opposite side of the corridor.
Erka walked toward the experiment building.
I moved a beat later in the direction of the classroom building.
I didn’t slow my pace.
As I returned to the classroom building, the logs related to the red thread kept snagging in my mind.
For stabilization.
For guidance.
For confirmation.
For treatment.
Alongside them, the tags I had written down came to mind.
[Deviation confirmed]
[Rebinding required]
[No response]
[Maintain hold]
Why had the word hold been there again?
I lightly rubbed my forehead.
The moment I said it aloud, there would be too much I’d have to explain.
After lunch, Erka came to find me.
To be exact, she didn’t act like she’d come to find me; she simply dropped a sheet of paper on the seat beside me.
I picked up the fallen paper.
There was a short note written on it.
Oil component inside the thread.
Same as the smell of dried medicinal herbs.
Possible reaction when heated.
May be inadvisable to burn.
The handwriting was sharp.
It seemed to carry Erka’s inexplicable irritation.
I folded the paper.
Then I said quietly,
“So the conclusion is that you don’t know?”
From beyond the empty desk beside me, Erka’s voice came low.
“Yes, I don’t know.”
“That’s unexpected.”
“If I drew a conclusion from one thread, that wouldn’t be research. It would be fortune-telling.”
“Are you saying that to me?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t laugh.
She was right.
“But one thing is certain.”
“What?”
“This thread was made so that if it’s tied around the wrist, it leaves a mark.”
“On purpose?”
“Yes.”
Erka pressed the tip of her pen very lightly against the inside of her own wrist.
“If the thread is too thin, the mark disappears quickly.
If it’s too thick, it stands out.”
She set down the pen.
“This was made to be easy to hide, but visible to anyone who knows how to look.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“The problem is who that ‘anyone’ is.”
“Exactly.”
Erka turned a page in her book.
“And the reason there are medicinal ingredients in it is probably related to that too.”
“The smell?”
“It could be the smell, or it could be a skin reaction.”
“So you’re not sure.”
“That’s why I need to look more.”
I put the folded paper in my pocket.
“You said it reacts when heated.”
“Yes.”
“When are you going to check?”
“After class.”
“Where?”
“Not in my room.”
“Why?”
“Because last time you came to see me at night and shattered my right to sleep.”
“That wasn’t because of the room.”
“It’s a matter of how I feel.”
Despite what she said, Erka already had the face of someone who had picked a place.
“Then?”
“The lab in the experiment building.”
“Is that okay? Didn’t you get kicked out after talking back to the professor?”
Erka’s eyebrows shot up at once.
“I didn’t talk back. I said something was wrong because it was wrong.”
“That’s usually called talking back.”
“Ordinary people use incorrect expressions all the time.”
“No wonder you got kicked out.”
“I wasn’t kicked out. He told me to step out for a moment.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“It is not.”
“And the lab is the best option.
It has lamps, glass plates, and vents to clear out smells.”
“Are you allowed to use it as you please?”
“I just have to use it when no one else is.”
“Isn’t that usually called using it in secret?”
“More precisely, it’s making use of empty time.”
Nice.
Someone who hadn’t been kicked out but had merely stepped out for a moment even knew the lab’s empty hours by heart.
The lesson did not enter my ears.