"Great job, as always, Azure!" Priest Miguel exclaims as I hand back my report and the files in Seven Days Suits and Dress Shop. "Returning the files and the mission almost halfway done in less than two weeks? Knight of the Cross, indeed."

I take my usual seat as he carefully looks through all the files, making sure that nothing is amiss. He places the whole folder on his desk, and then proceeds to read through my report.

"Hmm..." A moment later, he sharply looks at me, "The Assassin?"

"'Nerosia's greatest assassin,' she said. Waterlily the Nun, that is," I recount.

Priest Miguel takes a deep inhale, and blows out the air, whistling. He shakes his head in disbelief. "That..." He sighs. "Woah. Okay. That's fuckin' insane. Waterlily the Nun got Sweet Crimson to kill the Governor?"

"Sweet Crimson?"

"Yeah, Sweet Crimson." Priest Miguel explains, "She's the greatest assassin in Nerosia. She's the Empire's princess, prodigy, ace; whatever you want to call her. Consider this," Priest Miguel positions himself to directly face me, "she's your equivalent. Your rival."

Rival...?

"Do we know what she looks like?" I ask. If she's someone notable, we should know about her.

"No." Priest Miguel remains standing stiff. "No one knows who exactly she is. The Empire is keen on this secrecy to get the upper hand, to catch us unawares." He straightens, and looks directly at me. "They think they're so clever. It won't remain like this, though. I'll see to it that it won't stay this way," he says, trying to control his temper.

With this, I lean forward, elbows on my knees and hands clasped together. Even Miguel does not know that much about her, and he knows everything... No wonder he's frustrated.

Seeing his growing frustration, I opted to change the subject. "Have you heard anything about the lab?"

His head snap up. "The lab?" He looks confused for a moment, and then puzzle pieces seem to fit together inside his mind as he exclaims, "Ah! Yes."

He heads back behind his desk, opens the main drawer, and pulls out his notebook. "I haven't received an official report for dissemination yet, BUT—" a proud emphasis here, "—I might have heard a thing or two... or more." A mischievous look in his eyes and his smile suggest that I might be conspiring in something that might get us killed.

l play along. "Alright," I start to stand. "If this will get us in trouble—" 

"No, no, no!" He laughs and rushes to keep me sitting. "Here." He pulls up the ribbon to open the notebook at the exact page he needs, and points. I glance at it before he pulled it up back to his face to read and explain. "We were pretty lucky that we surprised them in the underground lab." With this, he looks at me to smile and say, "Good job on that!" He flips to another page and continues, "They left a good deal of documents, experiment findings, and even samples there. I heard Bishop Santos was happy because we'll be able to replicate the research, and from there, we'll probably be able to whip up something better." Priest Miguel grins.

"So it probably wouldn't matter that genetically mutated poppies and alpha versions of their opium were already sent to the Empire?" I ask, recalling what Waterlily the Nun said.

"Not for long." Priest Miguel shuts his notebook with one hand and returns it in his drawer, looking smug. "Their mistake was rushing the opium for sale and skipping human experiments." He smirked. "Besides," he walks back in front of his desk and leans on it, "there's no one better than Bishop Santos when it comes to chemistry."

-

-

Side effects: seizure after 15 hours, muscle spasms causing hydrophobia— rabis-like symptoms, but heart stops 2 hours after spasms. Discovered by experimenting on deacon.

Priest Miguel's notes stuck to my mind even after leaving Seven Days Suits and Dress Shop. Why a deacon? I have been walking around Hoxwell for an hour now, thinking. Did it matter if they were a Chapel member? Several times, I passed through the same streets already. I look at the clock tower. One more hour and I'll be dead if I had the alpha opium.

I pass by the Royal Skyrise Hotel and Restaurant for the third time now. This time, though, I look, sizing up the Empire's property. Hm, grand but irresponsible enough to neglect side-effects. The Royal Skyrise looks like a fairytale palace. Would they have experimented on their own? A single looming dome in the middle holds a flag with the Empire's crest stamped upon it. Around this, six turrets connected by high-rise walls surround the central dome: one on each corner of the Royal Skyrise's rectangular property, and two standing at the front center, holding a huge gate at the entrance. The facade glows in the night with golden light around and inside it, as if Cinderella's carriage will arrive anytime soon now to set a royal ball in motion.

As if on cue, a black car arrived and the attending bellhop immediately rushes to open the door and let out its passenger. My face instinctively pull up a bitter smirk. Probably an Empire's dog. I look away and begin walking again, not wanting any more to think about.

Aimless and directionless, I look up to the sky, the moon, and the lone star. How much luck did you grant me to escape death a thousand times already? How much more do I need to find peace for just a moment? Then and there, the clock tower rang for midnight.

And so I follow the sound as if it held answers.

-

The clock tower stands in the middle of Hoxwell. A landmark amidst the city hall. I casually stride through the front lawn, the government employees slightly bowing to me in greeting. I nod in return. 

I round the front building of the city hall and stop at the back where the entrance of the clock tower waits. I look around. Good. Everyone went home already.

I push the door open, and for a door seemingly neglected for probably years now, it easily moved with my hand without a creak. I take the spiraling steps upward until I reach another door. This door seems like it was recently repaired. The wood, though positively old, looks polished, and the doorknob was definitely changed.

Changed it was but when I turn it, it welcomed me to a messy and dusty room. Across the door, the window stands slightly agape, allowing the cool wind to stir pages of books, notebooks, drawing pads, and loose leaves of paper weighed down by random objects; all lumped in one corner of the room. There is a desk just before the window. I walk to it and find an impressive sketch of the Royal Skyrise just next to a half-melted candle in a makeshift candleholder.

Someone's living here? I head to the inhabited corner of the room, just at the right side of the desk, to find classic books that have definitely been sifted through multiple times by different hands. Good taste. A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, To Kill a Mockingbird, Anna Karenina, The Master and Margarita. Oh. I look around.

No poetry?

One open drawing pad caught my eye. On the page where it sits open, a colored rendering of an interior of a grand room sits dreamlike. Wine red curtains with gold tassels on what seems like floor-to-ceiling windows pair with the mahogany four-post bed with covers and bed curtains of the same color, also with gold edges and tassels, and pillows of cream white silk. On the left-hand side of the artwork, there is a royal vanity with mirror in the shape of a seashell, but without a chair. At the center of a room, a canvas on a mahogany easel stands proud. Just before it, a velvet chair finds itself pulled away from its original purpose by the vanity as it seems to be very much (mis)used by an artist. A half made face haunts the canvas, as if the artist cannot decide on what they must do or paint. On the floor by the easel, two palettes, a bunch of used brushes, a mug with random splashes of paint containing a single paint brush, and several tubes of paint are left to be a cozy mess.

What must it be like to live in a comfortable mess?

I flip through more renderings, paintings, and sketches of buildings, sceneries, interiors, and objects. Though all these were wondrously done, there is a lonely touch in each of them. Filled with beauty yet empty of warmth. I look around and realize what the artworks lack as I make sense of the loose pages.

People.

The loose pages are drafts of faces of (what I assume to be) random people. I run my hand through a practice sketch of an elegant woman's face. The woman on the drawing is definitely in her late forties to early fifties. She has a stern look on her face and her eyes seem to convey no warmth. It is no less than an impressive sketch, yet it remained unfinished. It is only a face. No head. No hair. No ears. No body.

The other loose pages contain individual unfinished persons. Some with just heads with hair, but no face and body. Others with complete bodies by no face or other details. I cock my head to one side in curiosity on what hinders this enchanting, mysterious artist in rendering people in her artworks.

I return the loose pages under their respective paperweight, and stand to give my legs and back a break from crouching down. I start to make my way to the window to let the cool wind hit my face when my right foot hits a crumpled paper. Huh? I pick it up and uncrumple it.

The frustration of the artist screams at me through the paper. Deep, angry pencil strokes tore through the paper. A single hole on the lower right seem to mark where the pencil broke. Past these angry frustration, however, is a complete and beautiful rendering of a young woman who is about to face the direction of the viewer through her left shoulder where her red hair carried by the wind obstructs the viewer from getting a proper view of her face. Her right eye and the tip of her nose, though, are visible. The young woman is wearing a summer dress and a hat she holds on to with her right hand to prevent from being blown by the wind.

I stare and take it in.

Why would they destroy this?

I take it to the desk, carefully flatten it then fold it, and put it in my pocket. I open the window a bit more, keeping in mind the papers that might be disturbed by the wind. I walk back to the pile quickly go through the notebooks. Most seem to contain helpful notes on drawings, practice sketches of body parts and random objects, and various stylization of the artist's subjects.

Deep inside the artist's pile sits a leather notebook. I open it in the middle and run through a random page.

cannot even tell what they were talking about.

Anyway, forget about that. There's this building in Hoxwell I just passed by earlier. I thought it looked like a royal palace. Well, it's named Royal Skyrise Hotel and Restaurant or something. 

Who would have thought? 

I'll pass by it again later. When no one's around, I'll sketch it.

-

Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY?

 I don't wanna do this anymore! They tell me to "just do it" BUT IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. What do you mean I'm still taking orders from those ugly rats? I mean, do we even KNOW them?

 Just LEAVE ME ALONE!!!

-

The skyline here looks so beautiful at night.

But still, no one's beautiful enough to

...Apparently, a journal.

I immediately realize that this is a collection of the artist's—or whoever inhabits this place's—thoughts, and so I immediately shut it and wonder. Damn this habit. I intruded too much.

The guilt of running through someone else's place and thoughts starts to bubble up inside me, so I come up with something. I tear a piece of paper from one of the notebooks and look everywhere until I find a pencil.

I hope they forgive me.

I tuck the letter under the makeshift candleholder. A wind blows through my face and immediately, I feel sleepy, as if the long days caught up to me now.

Doesn't seem like anyone's coming up soon. I'll rest here for a bit.