They ultimately decided on just returning to the inn to eat lunch; Tara, on her part, preferred the ability to hide somewhere. The colder weather was starting to bother her—the idle anxieties and restlessness she could solve with visiting the conservatory at home remained here. She wasn’t very fond of the people, either—couldn’t decide if she would prefer to feel out of place but ignored or acknowledged as a tourist and treated with a certain kind of care.

They found a spot at one of the empty tables; Matteo got up to order food and get the translating book while Tara stared at the words.

She almost wanted to hope that Torigami’s mischief largely ended with the memorial. His idea of ‘entertainment’ must involve revisiting the past, to some extent. She worried this would be a little more complicated.

Matteo came back after a few minutes, setting the book on the table and reaching over for the piece of paper Tara had written the text on.

“Okay, let’s see if this is anything helpful,” he said.

His attention fully shifted to the book; Tara started another drawing while Hannah watched the people around them. Matteo let out a little hum about two minutes later, flipping through the book a little quicker afterwards. He waited until the server brought over their food and they all murmured their thanks, pushing aside the book for now and leaning back in his chair.

“So.” He cast Tara a somewhat apologetic look. He likely noticed her growing reluctance to be here. “It doesn’t really look like this is…actual first island text? I mean, it’s close, so I can still try to translate it—it’ll just take a bit longer.”

Tara sighed, picking up her fork to poke at the food before taking a little piece to taste it.

“…Of course it will. This won’t suddenly be easy.”

“A little challenge makes sense, depending on what you’re doing it for,” Hannah noted. “It guarantees that whoever completes it cares enough to put in the effort.”

“I don’t mind challenges,” Matteo said, frowning a bit. “But we’re…on a bit of a time crunch. There’s a deadline, but we don’t know when it is.”

“You don’t have a guess?” Hannah asked.

Matteo shook his head. “It can be anywhere from a week to a year.”

“There has to be enough time to do something,” Tara reasoned. Otherwise, Itzun had no reason to lie to her that they could stop it. She trusted him just enough to believe he was being honest about that. It just depended on if he calculated the time based on current travel times or what they would have been like back then.

Old travel times meant that they would have roughly a month and a half just for the trip from Dakari to Sólstaður. Honestly, she almost hoped for that to be the case; they might be able to finish before the end of the year.

She would love to see that first sunset when she actually felt like she deserved it.

…

After a little while Matteo moved into his room; Tara went with him largely so she wasn’t near strangers, but he didn’t mind. Hannah decided to walk around the city until around dinner.

Tara sat as far away from the door as she could, focusing mostly on her drawing and occasionally glancing out the window in hopes it might show something inspiring. Unfortunately, nothing but snow and snow-dusted leaves were slowly losing their fascination.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Matteo’s half-audible murmurings ended when he sat the book down and nodded.

“Okay, I’m done descrambling.”

Tara paused her drawing and looked up at him.

“You called it ‘translating’ earlier.”

“It was in a weird order,” Matteo explained, picking up the piece of paper and standing up. “I had to translate to the closest equivalent, then go through and make it comprehensible. The content is more important than the methods.”

She put her sketchbook and pencils aside to give him her full attention. He went about half the distance before hesitating.

“Good news it’s from Itzun,” Matteo announced, albeit with some cheer that sounded forced. His voice held some caution as he continued, “It says what the deadline is, too—‘three months after the memories return.’ That means we have until mid-January.”

“And the bad news?” Tara asked, almost worried about the answer.

His reluctance at giving her the paper didn’t help any. He gave an apologetic look when she took it.

“…Sorry in advance.”

Tara slowly unfolded the paper. Just the way it was written made her remember all the times Itzun would circle around her while talking about one thing or another.

You have dedication to get this. Your little trip is about halfway over. Congrats.

To put it simply, you will need two things: a piece of pottery from the first island and the resurrected girl’s blood.

She froze immediately without reading the rest. Matteo winced, but came a little closer to tap near the rest.

Size and quantity aren’t important; it can be a small fragment and a drop. It just needs to bound to a specific place, which I will tell the girl when everything is acquired. If you don’t have the girl with you, well…consider this the end.

Tara put the paper down on the bed and pulled her legs up to her chest.

“That doesn’t help,” she whispered.

“I know it doesn’t,” Matteo said, “But apparently this is what Itzun considers entertainment.”

She let out a little whimper. Why was she surprised, really? It came from the same person who wanted two omyn to bind their blood to a gravestone—at least one of which did so unwillingly. She still had to play around with the show that Chizuru was too young to deny.

Matteo sighed and took the paper again, backing to the other wall to give her space.

“Can we agree that we shouldn’t tell Hannah? We can think of some other excuse to go to the first island.”

“…Honestly, I would prefer not to tell Adelinde or Rene either.”

He just blinked at her for a second.

“Do you really think you’re a good enough actor to convince them you’re not bothered?” he asked disbelievingly. “You can’t hide your emotions in this family—everyone has too much experience in reading faces and enough love to bring it to the other’s attention. They’ll take one look at you when we get home and know something’s wrong.”

“They don’t need to know their daughter will be hurt,” Tara maintained. “Even if it doesn’t have to be much, I still need to shed blood.”

“They deserve to know regardless,” Matteo argued. “Keeping it to yourself will worry them more than telling them will, trust me. I tried to play the ‘don’t say anything’ card when Aurik’s history started bothering me and Mom picked up on it immediately.”

She didn’t know if she wanted to continue arguing—even if she knew she couldn’t win—or concede. In the brief silence, however, a knock on the door solved the question for her.

“They’re starting to serve dinner,” Hannah announced from the other side.

Matteo recovered from the silence first, looking in the door’s direction.

“Okay. We’ll be there in a minute.”

He took a few steps that way before pausing, giving Tara a firm but kind look.

“But if you don’t tell Mom and Rene, then I will. If we’re both safe and alive at the end, they genuinely won’t mind—and if something happens to you, they’ll have fair warning.”

He only lingered for another second before making the rest of the way out. Tara quickly arranged her things in a nice pile before feigning normalcy the best she could.