Disclaimer:
Let's just skip the giant disclaimer you can find in Chapter 1!
x.
FS
x.
x. ENCOUNTER in VENICE x.
(new version)
x.
Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
("Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)", by Don McLean)
x.
"Like a phoenix…"
(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)
i.
"Like a phoenix from the ashes
She has risen…"
A few European tourists (probably of Dutch origin), who are cheerfully taking turns snapping photos of each other in front of the theatre house, are singing an unknown song, whose memory must have been sparked by the meaning of La Fenice's name, and Ai turns her head towards the source of the music. The song is too lavish a praise for the opera house, Shinichi remarks in annoyance, wondering why Ai can't give him her undivided attention like she used to do four years ago. La Fenice, ostentatiously sumptuous in its interior arrangements like most historic buildings in Venice, looks rather modest and unimpressive from the outside with its simple box-shaped facade. Only the emblem with its reddish-golden bird (which is supposed to be a splendid hybrid of an eagle and a dragon but only resembles a pitiful crossbreed between a goose and a peacock to Shinichi's eyes) alludes to the colourful phoenix: the mythical bird with golden, red, or sapphire-blue eyes—the bird associated with the rising sun, which has often been interpreted as a symbol of resurrection and time.
"It's not too lavish a praise for Milady, though." Noticing that Shinichi doesn't know the song, Ai flashes him an enchanting smile, which Shinichi, suspicious of her intentions, beholds with mistrust although its startling sight takes his breath away. "They're singing Milady's song from the modern version of The Three Musketeers. I know it because Seiya has sung the whole musical to me."
The setting sun has cast soft shadows on her face and her coat. From beneath her violet shawl, which she has drawn over her ears and her chin as they're approaching La Fenice, the reddish-brown strands of her loosely curled bangs are dancing in the rising wind, catching the last sunlight of the evening. Her hand, small and delicate, is still resting on his arm; and Shinichi inhales her faint kinmokusei fragrance almost involuntarily when her hair brushes against his cheek as she tilts her head to adjust her shawl and to put her sunglasses, which she has stuck into a buttonhole of her trench coat, into her jacket pocket.
It's most impressive how Milady de Winter, facing impossible odds, fought for her happiness, Ai distractedly muses. Even though the female antagonist in The Three Musketeers could be unscrupulous and cruel to her enemies and eventually lost to fate in the end like all fiercely independent literary heroines who had the misfortune to have been born into such a misogynist age, Milady's defeat has only elevated her to the status of a tragic anti heroine and turned her into one of the most memorable female antagonists in literature…
Ai has been toying with him like a sated cat with a mouse it has instinctively caught but doesn't want to devour! For the first time since he saw her again, Shinichi is struck by the realization that Ai is no longer his ally and might not even be Seiya's, considering that she must be keeping secrets from her singer. Haibara Ai has her own master plan—and like Dumas' unforgettable blonde seductress', Ai's moves, secretive but daring, are barely perceptible among other people's grand schemes.
To all appearances, Ai won't mention the watercolour card with Akira's name before Shinichi addresses the matter. Instead of playing along, Shinichi could just suppress the urge to ask Ai and investigate this case without her help—but either way he is going to lose this game since they both know that he can't resist the compulsion to solve mysteries whereas she has the patience to wait until he asks her.
"You're very mild in your condemnation of a poisoner!" he tells her in his sharpest voice, whereupon she lightly replies that she must admit to be biased, as "Milady de Winter" is the nickname her singer gave her when they met at Tenoh's house. Seiya and his brothers used to play the three musketeers when they were children; and since Seiya believed that neither Constance nor Queen Anne would be a credit to Ai's bad temper, he chose Milady de Winter, which is certainly not nice enough to be taken for an endearment but flattering enough to stick in her mind, especially since Seiya still repeats it from time to time.
When the image of Seiya's frilled white shirt springs to mind (Shinichi prefers the simple cardigan, which the singer wore before he had to get changed), Shinichi recalls that the shirt is also called "d'Artagnan shirt" or, more fittingly, "musketeer shirt", since it was worn by all the musketeers and not only by d'Artagnan, the celebrated captain of the musketeers and spy of Cardinal Mazarin's, who was featured in a fictionalized biography by de Sandras. D'Artagnan also became the protagonist of Dumas' popular three-part swashbuckling series The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years Later, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne—all of which ended on a depressing note although the tragic endings were often changed in adaptations.
"So which of the musketeers was Seiya? If he was Athos, Count de la Fère, the connection to Milady is obvious." Since Ai claims not to know it although she is wearing her mysterious, pensive expression and gazing gloomily into the distance, Shinichi heartlessly adds, "But that was also the musketeer who killed his wife upon discovering her lies, wasn't it? The relationship between Athos and Milady ended terribly even by Dumas' standards. I don't know even one adaption in which their marriage didn't end in murder or suicide—but nothing can beat the canon ending in terms of disastrousness!"
In the meantime, Ai has removed her hand from Shinichi's arm and pushed her shawl down to her neck. And despite the adult proportions of her face, she resembles the ten-year-old Haibara Ai so much that Shinichi can't accept the gulf between her behaviour towards him then and her attitude towards him now.
"Well, then I can breathe a sigh of relief that we will never get that disastrous ending, can't I?" She gives him a faint suggestion of a smile. "He will never kill me, no matter what happens, I can assure you!"
"If Tenoh wasn't murdered, it must have been suicide," Shinichi says on a more serious note, changing the topic without a transition since he senses that he has taunted her enough by now. "Did she have a reason to commit suicide?"
"Don't you dare to insinuate something like that when you visit Kaioh-san! No, it must have been an accident since Tenoh-san didn't have a reason to commit suicide: She had a wonderful family and a life partner who adored her, she was extremely talented and affluent. Almost everyone I know was enthralled by her. She was free and could do whatever she wanted, and she wasn't the type to commit suicide, much less in public."
"Could she have been blackmailed and forced to take her own life, then? To protect someone else, for instance." Since Ai doesn't reply and only knits her brows as if she were considering the possibility for the first time, Shinichi adds, "Sometimes one loves another person more than one's own life—and in Tenoh's case, Tenoh could have committed suicide to protect Kaioh. It sounds fanciful and not very smart, but even I would do it to protect the woman I love—in certain circumstances, if there is no other way out!" Love is a powerful weapon and deadly in the wrong hands. And now that he is thinking about it, it dawns on Shinichi that this theory would explain how easy it was for the culprit to poison Tenoh although Tenoh was supposed to have been "very smart and very capable of defending herself", according to Hino Rei. It would also account for Tenoh's quick, gentle death and the orderly state of Tenoh's dressing room.
Shinichi's words must have revived an unpleasant memory, judging from the expression of indignation which has flitted across Ai's flushed face like a dark rain cloud.
"I'll tell you something about Tenoh Haruka now so that you won't compare yourself to her!" She sighs and takes a deep breath as if she was going to rant for a long time. "During their vigilante phase at Infinity, Tenoh-san and Kaioh-san had an agreement: If one of them fell behind for some reason, the other would move on. They took that promise seriously. The greater cause and her own moral principles were what meant the world to Tenoh-san—and it didn't matter at all whose life was at stake."
"People don't always do what they say," interjects Shinichi. "Actions speak louder than words."
Not in the least perturbed by his comment, Ai proceeds with an example: Once Kaioh-san was kidnapped by an up-and-coming street gang, and Tenoh-san's answer when Meioh-san asked her whether (or rather when) they should pay the ransom was only, "We don't negotiate with gangsters, do we?"
"I think Tenoh-san loved Kaioh-san more than anyone else, even more than Hotaru-chan and certainly more than her own life, which she didn't value very much. But if anyone had threatened to harm Kaioh-san, Tenoh-san would simply have grabbed her rapier and knocked some sense into them before they could finish their sentence and that's it!"
"How did they free Kaioh?" Tenoh must have blindly trusted her own ability to free her girlfriend if she refused to pay the ransom despite having the money.
"They didn't free Kaioh-san—well, they were going to do it but they didn't have to. The same gangsters were holding Yaten-san for ransom, and Kaioh-san and Yaten-san escaped together although I don't know the details. That was the first time they met, and Kaioh-san gave Yaten-san free concert tickets afterwards. After the concert, Kaioh-san introduced Tenoh-san to Seiya, which caused quite a scandal because the paparazzi claimed that Seiya had hooked up with Kaioh-san in her dressing room and was attacked by Tenoh-san although all Seiya did was helping Kaioh-san with the zipper of her dress… But I'm late and must go now!"
She is smiling at him with an air of finality, and the sheer thought of not seeing her again for a whole day, of enduring almost twenty-four hours without talking to her, makes Shinichi's stomach clench in knots. They haven't seen each other for years—but before he can tell her that he has impersonated her during her absence, they have to part again.
"Why don't you forget about the case and watch the musical with me instead?"
Ai has used her smoothest, sweetest voice for the suggestion, which convinces Shinichi once again that she is trying to prevent him from solving this case instead of supporting him. "Do forget about the mystery for once! I'm sure you will enjoy the hustle and bustle of the backstage area."
If it weren't for Seiya, Shinichi would have been tempted to accept the invitation and might have succumbed to her velvety siren's voice. But since she has chosen her side and shown that she won't support him, he has to choose his as well.
"No, thank you. You know me, Haibara—I will always choose the case! I'm going to meet up with Carrara now, and I don't want to let Hakuba wait at the Doge Palace until the musical ends. Hakuba and I are going to meet at seven p.m. at the fourth pillar of the Doge Palace if you count from the lagoon towards the Bacino di San Marco. Afterwards we'll probably go to the Gritti or spend the evening in Harry's Bar just to have an overpriced dinner and try out the Venetian spritz. As you can see, Hakuba is as hedonistic and obsessed with details as ever. You're invited to come if you have the time to join us tonight. In any case, we two absolutely need to meet up tomorrow at the latest!"
"Do you know why Hakuba wanted to meet at the fourth pillar out of all pillars?"
"Because it's out of alignment with the other pillars?" Among the regular row of white marble pillars, the fourth pillar stands out like a glaring mistake in an otherwise perfect plan, an anomaly which didn't escape Shinichi's attention when Ran and he were roaming the centre of the city. "Come to think of it, a 'perfect murder' is very much like the Doge Palace—the row of events seems flawless until you discover the fourth column."
"The Torture of Hope." An enigmatic smile flickers across her fine-featured face before her eyes darken. "Isn't it a beautiful, wonderfully romantic name for a mistake?"
"You mean Torture by Hope?" Shinichi corrects her. "Isn't it a nineteenth-century French short story about a prisoner during the time of the Inquisition, who was tricked into believing that he could escape in the night of his execution?"
"It was the only torture which could break his spirit—the realization that his hope was futile right from the start just when he believed he had finally reached his goal. Vain hope is the cruelest, most painful of illusions… The story is The Torture by Hope, by Villiers de L'Isle-Adam."
"But what does it have to do with the fourth column?" Did she seriously mean that Shinichi won't ever solve this case even though he has solved all the cases he encountered in his life? "And why did you call it the Torture of Hope?"
She has read somewhere that the fourth column was called the Torture by Hope, Ai claims, and she only made the mistake since her mind was beginning to wander. Of course she is lying to him this time—she doesn't even make an effort to hide it—but Shinichi can't think of a reason why she can't be truthful.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to follow your train of thought, Haibara!" The image of the love necklace he has unwittingly given her flashes through his mind, and it takes Shinichi some effort to push it aside to focus on the mystery.
"Miyano, not Haibara," she gently corrects him. The last sunlight is playing in her long lashes and her limpid turquoise-blue eyes; and for the first time in his life, Shinichi notices—really acknowledges and sees—that Ai's eyelashes are naturally black in contrast to her fair hair.
"Tomorrow at the Florian! Three p.m.!" Shinichi reminds her. She has become so noncommittal that he has begun to fear that she will forget about their date.
"We can meet up earlier if you have time," she suggests, much to his surprise. "Would you like to go out for lunch with us? You can bring whoever you want. Afterwards, when Seiya goes to La Fenice, we can have coffee at the Florian and go for a walk before the musical starts."
Ai doesn't only want to watch the opening night—she also plans to watch the musical on Sunday. And before Shinichi's inner eye, the image of her sitting on a chair or lying on the sofa in Seiya's dressing room before and after every single performance (and probably almost every single rehearsal as well), whiling away her rare hours of free time with a nap or a cup of tea while Seiya is working on his mask in silence, repeats itself in an infinite loop. If this is the way she wants to spend her life, it's not Shinichi's task to "knock some sense" into her.
"Let's meet at the Florian after lunch," Shinichi decides since having lunch with her and her singer isn't his notion of a date. "Please come alone!"
"See you tomorrow then." She turns away from him with the same expression of bewilderment and sadness she has been wearing in the last hours (the clueless look which infuriates Shinichi more than her nonchalance and her obstinacy). Hence he takes a step towards her to grab her arm but reconsiders it after remembering her shocked expression when they were in Seiya's apartment.
"Miyano!" he calls out instead, whereupon she gives him a distracted smile.
"Yes?"
"Why did you give me the watercolour card?" Even though he has lost and she has won, he can see no victory in her eyes but only anticipation and something close to fear.
"I found it about two months ago, after someone broke into our apartment and nothing was stolen." Her enigmatic half-smile and her fear are momentarily replaced by an expression of wide-eyed innocence. "'Tenoh Akira' and 'Jean Black' are the names Seiya once used whenever he was incognito—during his bar-hopping phase when he played Young Moriarty in Detective Boy Holmes. Seiya hasn't used either of the two names, which he had only chosen to tease Tenoh-san, since then. But about a year ago, someone under that name suddenly appeared in Italy and France. 'Akira-sama', who seems to love the high life, has been dating pretty socialites and seducing them out of their easy money more or less successfully since then; and since it's an open secret in artistic circles that Seiya was 'Tenoh Akira', people who know about Seiya's teenage pranks believe Seiya is the crook. I thought the case could interest you if you have time, but maybe you're too immersed in the La Fenice case to look into it. It could be of some interest to Hakuba-san as well since 'Tenoh Akira' has shot his falcon."
"I will clear Seiya's name for him—if Seiya is innocent." As important as her information was, Shinichi can't get over the fact that Ai has been using his mystery obsession to save the reputation of her prankish womanizer. "How large are the sums 'Akira' took? Are there many angry exes?" Realizing that her fear might not be unfounded, he adds with some apprehension, "Is Seiya in great danger?"
"I think it's only peanuts, and Seiya doesn't need anyone's protection." Her smile broadens. Apparently, the fact that Shinichi would have protected her singer has amused Ai so much that she has forgotten about her anxiety. "It only irritates me that 'Akira' has been wrecking Seiya's reputation and that people don't even notice how sensible and focused Seiya has become." In reply to Shinichi's raised eyebrow, she sighs. He doesn't know Seiya at all, she asserts. "Just give him a chance and you will notice that you two are very alike! But we'll have to continue this discussion tomorrow since I've been away much too long."
"See you tomorrow." Disheartened by her undisguised hurry to run back to her singer, Shinichi gives up at last. Watching her ascend the stairs of La Fenice with the deliberate, easy steps of a queen attending a fancy ball held in her honour, he can't help but recall the girl who used to hide behind his or Mitsuhiko's back and wonder how much effort it must have cost Ai to become the person she is now.
"Milady de Winter…"
"Yes?" She has only turned her head to him this time while her feet are continuing their way upstairs to the entrance of La Fenice, where the emblem of the phoenix is hanging over her head like a menacing crown of fire.
"I'm glad that we two will never marry!"
"Why?" She looks genuinely dismayed at his statement.
"Because I'd be very tempted to hang you or behead you just like that count and musketeer did to his wife!"
She laughs—and the unfamiliar, soft, silvery sound seems to warm the cool Venetian evening and brighten the now overcast sky. The people in front of her turn around in curiosity. Somewhere, a woman is taking pictures. On the photo, Ai would only be a harmless strawberry-blonde stranger in a simple trench coat, who is laughing and raising her hand to say goodbye to her companion, who doesn't follow her into the opera house for some obscure reason.
"How lucky for both of us that we won't ever marry, right?" she remarks and, after flashing him a last smile, quickly enters the opera house, where he can see her rush through the throng of well-dressed people with the unwavering determination of a woman who is deeply, blindly in love with her boyfriend or fake boyfriend (it doesn't matter whether they're a real couple or not since it wouldn't change anything about her infatuation with her singer) despite knowing that the one she loves must have lied to her and used her.
i.
On the vaporetto to the Piazza di San Marco, where Shinichi mentally goes through the happenings since last night for another time, Shinichi scraps the theory of the culprit who has hurriedly cleaned the victim's dressing room in less than fifteen minutes. If the culprit was Seiya (and the culprit must have been Seiya because who else could it have been?), he could have cleaned the dressing room leisurely, methodically. The many slow clocks and watches, which resulted in a chaos of unreliable witness accounts, were the magician's distraction to draw the audience's attention away from the few details which mattered. The truth is so obvious that Shinichi wonders why he couldn't see it before. There was only one person in the whole opera house who had all the time in the world to clean the dressing room if one watch was slow: Luigi Gentile's vintage pocket watch, which Shinichi only noticed this afternoon when he protected Ai from the reporters and which Seiya must have put forward by now.
That's the reason why Seiya had to ask Gentile where Ai was although Seiya must have known that she was waiting for him in his dressing room. If you have to hide a needle, just hide it in a haystack or, even better, in a pile of other needles! Damn manipulative, smart, talented, ruthless culprit, who didn't let anything distract him from his plan! Not even Ai's unexpected migraine attack and Nadia Gorowitz's presence in the opera house (the part-time usher had a day off but visited her ex-boyfriend just to stalk Seiya, as Shinichi learned this afternoon when he asked Ai who their stalker was before he excused himself to use the bathroom) could derail the premeditated murder.
On the other hand, Seiya has shown himself to be kind and considerate despite committing the reckless murder when he put the watches back and forward in a way which resulted in an alibi for all the people in the backstage area and not only for himself. Interestingly, the singer has even presented himself as the prime suspect so that no one else's career would be destroyed by nasty rumours. The musical world will exist with or without me. Rumours won't be able to destroy my career as they would destroy Mamoru's or Rei's. How perfectly amiable!
There was only one watch which Seiya Kou couldn't touch: Aino Minako's watch or clock—since Aino Minako wasn't in the opera house last night. Aino could become a key witness and assist Shinichi's investigation if she didn't have a crush on Seiya as well, as Shinichi could see before Ai and he left the campo.
In any case, all witnesses like Seiya enough to lie for him whereas Shinichi doesn't have any proof for his theory. Now that Shinichi has promised Ai to look into the "Tenoh Akira" case, Shinichi also has to haul Seiya out of the mess the inveterate playboy must have got himself into because, being the unprincipled jerk he is, Seiya couldn't keep his hands off other pretty women despite having the one he loves (or one of the few women he loves?) in his apartment.
What could the motive for the murder be, Shinichi once again wonders as he wanders about the picturesque Piazza di San Marco, which is still teeming with tourists and doves in November. Seiya, carefree and spoilt by luck, obviously loves his life—and he has her. Even if Seiya and Ai weren't an item, Seiya must be blind not to recognize her feelings for him. Moreover, the singer doesn't look dumb enough to ruin his life by murdering Tenoh Haruka just because she tried to drive a wedge between them.
"Hollywood is going to turn the Detective Boy Holmes remake into a blockbuster, so I've heard. It's too bad that Seiya-sama has rejected the offer to reprise his role."
"Has he? But I thought they've even offered him the main role this time."
"I still hope he will change his mind since he would be a terrific Sherlock Holmes…"
A group of Japanese tourists are chatting about a Hollywood remake of the Detective Boy Holmes series in front of the Florian, where Shinichi is whiling away the time until his meeting with Carrara. And Shinichi, whose attention has been captured by the name of his number-one suspect, lingers in front of the Florian's outdoor band, which is presently playing "Music of the Night".
"But who would play Moriarty if Seiya-sama didn't? Seiya-sama was the perfect Moriarty—no one else could be so charismatic and dangerous at the same time."
"Taiki-sama said he would play Moriarty if Seiya-sama played Sherlock Holmes. Since Taiki-sama was such a great Sherlock Holmes, we can hope that he will be a great Moriarty as well."
"Ah, but Taiki-sama would be a completely different Moriarty, wouldn't he? Taiki-sama would be a passionless, cold-blooded, vengeful Professor Moriarty—not a charming gentleman crook who happens to kill his enemies without remorse because he has to lead a criminal organization."
"Passionless, cold-blooded, vengeful… Wouldn't that be the ultimate Professor Moriarty? Besides, weren't there two Moriarty's in canon? I've heard there was a plot hole in Sir Conan Doyle's stories which made that idea feasible."
James Moriarty, one of the most fascinating villains in literature, was only a deux ex machina to end Sherlock Holmes' life—just as Godfrey Norton must have been a deux ex machina to prevent Holmes from being with his ideal woman. Ironically, the side characters Conan Doyle failed to flesh out caught the readers' fancy because they were so sketchy and mysterious; and the many plot holes in the Moriarty-Holmes showdown only added to Moriarty's appeal.
"I don't know much about the canon Moriarty. What I liked most about Detective Boy Holmes was how they kept the canon version of Irene Adler and her husband intact. I mean, what's the point of giving Irene Adler a boring or abusive husband so that she can kiss Sherlock Holmes without a guilty conscience? Doyle gave us the perfect obstacle to the Adlock pairing when he created Irene's beautiful, enthusiastic Godfrey Norton, who did justice to Irene's intelligence and good taste."
"But that would be too great an obstacle for Sherlock Holmes in a movie, wouldn't it? Why should Irene go for the great consulting detective when she already has a great and handsome husband who loves her so much that he would throw away his career and leave England with her? Sherlock Holmes admired Irene Adler or was even in love with her, but, if you consider the hard facts, Irene Adler never reciprocated. Everything Irene did—keeping the photo of herself and the king, hiding her marriage, tricking Holmes—she only did to protect herself and her Mr Norton…"
"The director of Detective Boy Holmes solved that problem by turning Godfrey Norton into Young Moriarty so that the fans can write fanfics about Irene discovering the horrible truth that her handsome husband was a criminal mastermind."
"But they were only played by the same actor. They weren't the same person in the series, were they?"
"Come to think of it, if Seiya-sama played Sherlock Holmes, who would be good-looking enough to play Godfrey Norton?"
"Rumour has it that Yaten-sama has agreed to play Godfrey Norton this time if Seiya-sama plays Sherlock Holmes. It's possible since Watson and Godfrey Norton don't have any screen time together…"
Why should Shinichi care about a series which has changed everything he likes about the canon and kept the one pairing he can't stand? There is no reason why Shinichi should ever watch Detective Boy Holmes, and he doesn't believe that he will miss out on anything.
i.
In the gathering twilight, the lagoon is shimmering in countless shades of lavender and turquoise and blue, just like her eyes, in which Shinichi could have drowned although he doesn't know her at all. Even though he can no longer deny that he wants Ai in that irrational, idiotic way in which teenagers long for the beautiful crush they've only admired from afar, it can't be love since they practically met for the first time last night. Ai is so different from the mental image Shinichi once had of her that she might as well be a stranger.
What are you going to do after taking the cure?
Bringing down the Organization, securing Pandora's Box, proposing to Ran. I've actually told Ran about my feelings long ago, so you can say we're having a long-distance relationship now, well, sort of… I'd have told you about it much earlier if talking about it hadn't been so awkward.
Well then, I'll give you the permanent antidote right now if you can delay all those things for a few hours and stay here with me while I'm watching Charade...
Oddly enough, the musicians in front of the Florian have begun to play "Charade"—and the mournful, eerie tune is streaming through the Piazza di San Marco and the adjacent streets like a requiem or a ghostly funeral dance on the grave of a love that died years ago. Behind Shinichi, the fourth column of the Doge Palace looms like a marble giant. Vain hope is the cruelest, most painful of illusions, she said. The death of hope was the only torture which could break the prisoner's spirit before the execution.
Thoughts and emotions alone are too little but too strong, which must be the reason why gestures and actions usually follow afterwards. In Shinichi's hand, the platinum screwdriver resembles a murder weapon and, at the same time, a nasty little needle which will continually be poking at his leg if he doesn't do anything about it. Shinichi takes three steps towards the lagoon, hesitating for a moment before he gives in to the strange, unexplainable impulse—and the little screwdriver catches the last light of the red sun on the horizon as it shoots into the air towards the lagoon and, after flying a high arch and sparkling in the sunlight for the last time, disappears in the rippling water.
i.
End of Part Four
i.
A/N: The first lines of this chapter are from the song "Milady is a phoenix" from 3 Musketeers by Bolland&Bolland. When I was writing this chapter, I had to translate the (fantastic) original lyrics from into English since there was no English version of it, and I ended the chapter with a stanza of the song since it was so fitting. Now that I'm editing this chapter two and a half years later, there is an official English version, which is, frankly, not great. Oh well…
I've finally uploaded all the old chapters! Now I'll be back to scribbling on paper and wait until I have the time (and the nerves) to edit my notes and type them down. :D
