Part Five

Remilia stood still, as if letting a moment of pain pass. Her body eased. She lowered her hands to her sides. The red light around her faded, and she breathed heavily.

“Now I know why you stay in the library all the time,” she said to me.

I was already struggling to my feet, pushing myself across the dirt path and to the lake shore.

“The monster knocked Koa into the lake!” I said.

Remilia gave no reaction of surprise. She spoke no doubt or question. She immediately turned and jumped down to the lake shore. I meant to follow her, but the slope was steep, even for the short distance down to the water. Remilia’s silhouette knelt at the lake’s edge below me. I crouched to descend myself, but she called up to me.

“Stay there!” she said. “I found her. Let me bring her up.”

I stood straight. Remilia soon stepped up onto the grass beside me. The front of her dress was wet, but the unconscious Koakuma in her arms had been completely immersed. Water dripped off her, dotting the ground with dark spots. Her wings and hair hung lank off her head. Her clothing clung to her, revealing her thin figure. I stepped forward and put a hand to Koa’s cheek. She was cold to the touch.

“She is not breathing!” I said. “Lay her down, please.”

Remilia did so. She set Koa on the ground, keeping her neck and back as straight as possible. I knelt down beside Koa and I put both hands on her head. With one, I held down her jaw. With the other, I pinched her noise shut. I looked inside her mouth, making sure there was no obvious obstruction. I took in a deep breath, then lowered my face to Koa’s. I pressed my open mouth to hers, and pushed air into her.

After expending my breath, I lifted my head and placed my hands over Koa’s chest, ready to compress her ribs in mimicry of normal respiration. She needed no further stimulation. Her chest heaved on its own, and her eyes fluttered open and closed. She choked, struggling for breath. I rolled her onto her side. She coughed and sputtered, expelling the water she had inhaled. I patted her on the back, more to offer comfort than to help her breathing.

“Will she be all right?” said Remilia.

“She is breathing again,” I said, “but the lake water is freezing, and she may suffer hypothermia.”

“I’ll get her back to the mansion.” Remilia put both arms under Koa and lifted her again. “I move the fastest.”

“Please wait,” I said, standing with her. “You are indeed quick, but that may thwart us. The wind chill could harm her.”

“You can’t carry her back,” she said.

“No, but I can help you do so.”

I looked around and saw my spellcard folder on the ground nearby. I picked it up and thumbed through the pages. There I found a spellcard, slipped it from the folder’s pages and held it to Koa’s chest. It took one second to focus the necessary power to activate the card.

“Wind sign,” I said, “Anemoi Anchor!”

This spell has no vivid display of light as most of my spells do. The air around Koa’s body changed, becoming like a viscous liquid. It created a layer of stationary air that conformed to her. The cold night air would not pass through this magical blanket. This would serve to keep her body heat. I passed a hand over her nose and mouth, deactivating that part of the spell. Keeping her warm would serve no purpose if she suffocated.

“Please keep her face turned toward your body,” I said, “so that her lips and nose do not freeze.”

Remilia nodded to me. She is also a mage, and recognized the purpose of the spell.

“Good call,” she said. “Meet you back home.”

She turned and dashed off into the night. I heard the whoosh of her passing, had a glimpse of her wings flapping as she ran, and she was gone. I stood on the strip of grass, between the beaten path and the lake shore, and I was alone.

---

The flaming bird still flapped above my head, keeping me warm and lighting an orange circle around me.

First, most importantly, I found my hat at the edge of the woods. No woman of status in Gensokyo is seen outdoors without her hat. It was scuffed and dirty, but my crescent moon brooch was still pinned to it. I fit the cap upon my head. Both my hair and clothes could be washed. Indecency is a much more serious matter.

I walked over to the scorched patch of earth, left by the first attack spell I used against the mutated fairies. I looked at the blackened dirt, ground a bit of it under my toe.

Fire had not harmed the fairies. Now I understood why. They had already been burned by a flame worse than anything I could conjure, a flame that should have killed them, but instead left them half-living. I have no special sympathy for other youkai, but nor do I love cruelty. I hoped whatever had mutated the fairies to be a fluke of nature. The prospect of a deliberate mind doing so troubled me.

I walked away from the burnt ground, to the spot where I had shot the fairies with the assault rifle spell. I could tell the place only by the bullet holes in the dirt. The bullets themselves had disappeared with the spell, and the fairy blood was gone. I took that as a sign that they, and the monster they formed, were now truly dead.

What of that monster? That was the worst aspect of the fairy mutation. Youkai are independent beings, no matter their level, and do not belong to a communal consciousness. I knew of no natural process that could cohere them into a hivelike mass.

These thoughts pushed me down the path, and I headed home.

---

My prediction earlier proved correct. Meiling was asleep at her post, standing but leaning back against the walk beside the front gate, arms folded and head lowered. The gate was ajar, open just wide enough for someone to walk through.

On another night, I would have chastised Meiling for this dereliction, but I was too shaken and weary to care now. I stepped past her, went through the gap in the gate, then it closed behind me. The gate weighs more than I do, but its hinges allow it to move smoothly, so even I could pull it shut.

I approached the mansion’s main doors. Lady Scarlet stood on the porch, waiting for me. She had changed dresses since I saw her last.

“Took your time getting back,” she said.

I walked up the steps to the porch. “Apologies for the delay. I am injured. Is Koa well?”

“She’s resting. She’ll be fine.” Remilia opened the doors and we both went in from the cold. “You’re hurt? How badly?”

“Less severely than she is,” I said. “Mine are the hard knocks of learning.”

The door shut behind us. I pointed a finger to my warmth spell, pushed a bit of will into it, causing it to deactivate. The flaming bird dispersed into a shower of red sparks, falling around me and disappearing. Its warmth faded, and I was once again subject to ambient temperature. It was cool inside the mansion’s cavernous corridors, but still warmer than outside.

We crossed the foyer and ascended the stairs. I intended to go check on Koa, then get a bath and a clean outfit before bed. Remilia walked with me in lockstep.

“So,” she said, “what were those things?”

I shook my head. “Not the slightest idea. The horde of them emerged from the woods and attacked us. They seemed to be lesser fairies that were burned undead by a magic I have never seen before. They were immune to my fire spells, and physical trauma only allowed them to reform into the man-shaped mass that you destroyed.”

“I could tell you had tried fighting them before I got there.”

“Fortunate that you did, Mistress” I said. “A few seconds later, and neither Koa nor I would have made it home. May I ask, how did you unmake that monstrosity?”

“A lucky guess, that’s how,” said Remilia. “An enemy able to shrug off your spells would be no joke, so I had to try something that you couldn’t do. I used my Gungnir construct to rip it apart down to the tiniest particles of matter, each so small that the individual pieces couldn’t house enough magic power to pull them back together.”

I blinked. “That... is genius. You utilized the law of material capacity. That should have occurred to me.”

“Even if you’d thought of it, and even if you could do it at all, you couldn’t do it quickly enough to keep from getting squished. Don’t forget, I’ve had about four more centuries to practice and prepare than you have.”

“Y- yes, Mistress.”

“Anyway, what were you two doing out in the freezing night?”

“We were out for a stroll.”

That took Remilia by surprise. “You... you went out for a walk?”

“I hope I did not breach a house rule by doing so.”

“Of course not. If you want to go for a walk, go for a walk. But it’s—”

“Mistress, before we go on, may I check on Koakuma? This is her room.”

We had come to the wing of the mansion that contained the bedrooms of the senior staff. Koa’s bedroom door was just ajar, letting light from a sparklamp leak out into the hallway.

“I already did,” said Remilia. “I told you, she’ll be fine.”

“Mistress, please. I... it seems prudent to have a second pair of eyes— I mean, not to discount your ability at medical triage, but if... if the situation were such that—”

As I stammered, a look of realization came over Remilia’s face. She took my hand in her own, which quieted me.

“I get it,” she said. “You feel guilty.”

I inhaled sharply, but could muster no words.

“You’re not wrong to feel how you feel,” said Remilia, “but don’t beat yourself up over it. Tonight we got a rude reminder: Gensokyo can be a dangerous place, even for old wizards like us. Bad things happen sometimes, and it’s not your fault.”

I nodded, but could say nothing.

“Then go watch over her,” she said. “Stay up all night if you need to.”

---

Ideally I would have first taken a bath and changed into clean clothes, but such trifles would have done nothing to alleviate my mind. I walked into the bedroom where Koakuma lay recovering, then sat in the armchair near the bed.

Perhaps at the noise of my arrival, Koa stirred in bed. She inhaled, and her eyes opened. She looked around the room, saw me sitting beside her.

“Lady Patchouli?” she said.

As she spoke, she brought a hand to her face, but she regretted it, for she touched her bruises. She clenched her teeth, hissing in pain.

“Relax,” I said. “You are hurt.”

“What happened?” she said. “Did the monster—”

“Gone,” I said. “Completely obliterated. You are safe. Rest now, and speak no more.”

She gave me a weary smile.

“Thank you for protecting me.”

My throat closed. I swallowed, and the first hint of tears underlined my eyes.

“No thanks needed,” I said.

Koa’s head rolled back, and her eyes closed. After several minutes, her breathing regulated to that of sleep.

I sat there, letting my bruises and tension ease into the armchair, and pulled my spellcard folder out from under my arm. I opened it and began reviewing, then reorganizing the slips of paper it contained. It was pointless busywork, meant only to keep my hands and eyes occupied. The more important work happened within: thinking how I might better protect myself and my loved ones when danger next appeared.