Roth shook his head.

  “I wish I could say that, but the law of Dead Weight is there for a reason. Destroy the Bond, Ghost will lose Personality and turn into Memory again. Destroy the Weight itself, same result.”

  “Then what did you figure out?”

  The Magical doctor smirked.

  “Now that is the question for future. Lady Fox, this estate was built as a tribute to your marriage?”

  She remained silent for a minute, then nodded.

  “...Correct.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  She jumped back.

  “What are you-” Lady Edna froze for a second. Then she slowly closed her mouth and hang her head low. Her hands tightened into fists.

  “...I do. I do love that damn bastard still! Even after five years, after my death, I love his stupid, idiotic, sleazy face still! That coward never ever had the balls to even admit to my face, that he was unsatisfied with me! He betrayed me, sold me out, ran behind his papa’s back to cry on his shoulder, instead of facing me directly, instead of admitting that he got a lover and didn’t love me anymore- Aaaaaaaargh!!!”

  By the end of the rant, Lady Edna was outright roaring into the skies with outstretched hands. Skies remained ignorant of her woes.

  That was quite an enjoyable sight from a sophisticated rich girl.

  After Lady had sent all of her rage out, she uncharacteristically cracked her neck and knuckles (despite having no physical body), with a furious expression on her face.

  “...You know what, doctor Roth? If you manage to free me from this island, I will get you a list with the real names of merchants that were buying Nature’s Bane from me. I kept it separately in case of trouble, but now that I am dead… Argh, screw it all!! I just want to beat this prick down! I just want to see his mug again, I want to punch him so hard so all of his teeth would fly out, and I want to see what kind of fake smiling mask his current girl has! So that I can… I can…”

  She stopped for a second.

  “...No. The girl probably fell for his face too. The bastard is handsome, and I will be the first to admit it…but… urgh…”

  The expression she made was telling the story better than a thousand words would ever do. Joe could only feel deep pity for the betrayed woman.

  Roth clapped his hands together.

  “Good to see that my skills are still up to par. So, we have the mansion as the Dead Weight, which is not good. But I have a way out. Lady, do you have any other item with an equally strong connection to you?”

  She frowned, but nodded.

  “...I do. The wedding ring. Curses…”

  “Would you be so kind to bring it here?”

  Lady Edna disappeared into the building without a word. Roth turned to his companions.

  “I need some assistance. Joe, Irfan, can I ask you to bring her body here?”

  Xander stopped them both.

  “No need. I will be back in a minute.”

  He ran inside the mansion.

  Both of them, Edna Fox and Xander, returned at the exact same time, together. She was glancing at the quartermaster, being a bit weirded out, but didn’t say a word about such brazen invasion on her privacy.

  Roth pointed at the entrance to the building.

  “Put her body there, gently, gently… Now, make her arm touch the wall. Don’t tear it off, you idiot!”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  The poor body was creaking, being terrified of a giant brute yanking its arms. The previous owner of said body was looking at the procedure with the highest possible concentration of disgust.

  “That’ll do… I hope… Lady, your ring, please.”

  She reached out her hand. The ring was made out of platinum, decorated with a huge sapphire on top, surrounded by a golden barley pattern.

  “Holy void, this is one expensive ring…” Ralf’s jaw fell down. “That costs more than we made during the previous half a year!”

  Xander nodded. His ears were slightly twitching.

  “Agreed. But I don’t think a man would throw away so much money just to appease his one-night lover. They really did love each other…”

  Cook didn’t waste his opportunity to grill the quartermaster.

  “What, still can’t find yourself a pussy? You know, why? Because, it is you, who is the pussy, Zan! Just come to any hoe at the Ghastly Wail, tell her how much you want her, play with your muscles, get her drunk, throw on the shoulder, f-”

  Xander jammed Ralf’s speech mid-sentence with the outstandingly direct method of shoving his paw in the cook’s face. His sharp tail was rapidly flailing around.

  “Shut. Up.”

  Ralf put his hands up immediately.

  Joe chuckled and turned back to Roth. The Mage had put the ring on the finger of the dead body.

  “We are almost done with preparations. Now… now I need several things. First, I need dead silence.”

  Xander and Ralf glanced at each other, and nodded, stopping their rising conflict dead in its tracks.

  “Second… Lady Edna, do hover as close to the body as possible, please. It would help me immensely. And, please don’t move from this spot, before I say so.”

  She frowned, but nodded and took the place that Roth pointed at.

  “Alright… Everything should be ready. Well, Magnus, let’s see how much I remember from our good old days…”

  The doctor held the bone in his hands. He knelt in front of the composition at the entrance. His face was concentrated, his eyes were focused exclusively on the body.

  He touched the mansion with the bone, holding it there for a little while.

  Then he moved the bone over to the ring.

  “A-ah?!”

  Lady Edna suddenly got pulled closer to Roth, outside of the mansion.

  Joseph and Pat were signaling with their arms, telling her to calm down. It seems that the message reached the Ghost, as she awkwardly froze in the weird half-pull stance, with an extremely confused look on her face.

  Roth put the book with the white rhevalian underneath the hand with the wedding ring. His forehead was covered in sweat. He put the bone on top of the hand.

  Then he exhaled.

  “...I think I got it. Try to move around, Lady Edna.”

  The Ghost slowly floated to the side. Then to the other side. Then she went through the wall, back into the mansion, and emerged outside without any problems.

  “I… I am free?… I am free! I am free! Doctor Roth, you are the best Mage I have ever seen!!!”

  She was happily dancing around, laughing out loud.

  Roth wiped the sweat off his forehead and smiled.

  “Unfortunately, to completely free the Ghost from the Dead Weight, a master of Life… or Freedom Affinity is necessary as well. And I am only moderately experienced in the first, despite being a doctor…”

  He chuckled.

  “...Since I was focusing on skeletons and graves, and my knowledge of medicine suffered quite a bit. Lady Edna.”

  She stopped and turned to the doctor.

  “Yes, I am listening.”

  “Your ring is now your Dead Weight. But you are not shackled by the distance anymore. You can hide it in any safe place you like, and travel around freely, on your own terms.”

  Lady’s expression turned grim for a moment.

  Then she smiled, waving her hand.

  “If the distance is not a concern, then I am fine with it! I know places where I can keep the ring, so you don’t need to worry about anything anymore. But I did promise you a reward, and I will keep my word. All the names are in the book ‘Iron Ships, Men of Steel’, hidden between pages. The book is in the library, near the entrance to the right, slightly lower than eye level. Use it however you see fit!”

  “Hold on, Lady Edna, what are you going to do now?” Joe was really worried about just leaving her to her own devices.

  She laughed.

  “Oh, I am going to take your hunter’s bow with me! Then, I will return to the Capital, find Alexander, and tell him everything about the size of his nonexistent balls!”

  Pat raised his eyebrows.

  “You are just going to fly through the Threshold? You do know, that there are monsters, capable of destroying even Ghosts? Like Menaces, for example? Or Tearings, which can have completely unpredictable effects?”

  Lady Edna raised her head high.

  “If it will be my ultimate demise, then so be it. I am not afraid to die the second time. But to fly freely in the starry sky was my dream, and I will not let anything take it from me now!”

  She put the ring on her finger.

  Then she flew up into the air, laughing maniacally, and dived through the wall on the third floor. Lady emerged from the inside through the broken window, holding the bow Irfan made the very first night.

  “Goodbye, gentlemen! May the Fate you seek direct your ship through any obstacles you may ever face in your life! Sir Joseph, Sir Pat, Sir Irfan, and Sir Roth - I will never forget the four of you, for that, I give you my word. The word of Lady Edna Fox, once a dead daughter of a merchant, one you freed from her shackles on the long-abandoned and destroyed island in the corner of the Threshold!”

  The sonorous joyful laughter was filling the skies for a while after. Their new ally waved her hand, and floated away into the void, to the distant clouds.

  “Such a free Spirit… I hope she reaches her Fate too,” concluded Irfan.

  Pat tilted his head.

  “...She is insane.”

  Joe turned to him.

  “You just noticed?”

  Roth’s assistant made a weird sound between bark and laugh.

  “Well, I guess Alexander Wolkur deserves what is coming to him. Would be nice to see this written in the newspaper, or heard from the host on the radio - “Son of a Noble was pummeled by a Ghost of his dead wife! More at eleven!”

  Roth chuckled.

  “You don’t regret traveling with us, instead of safely wasting your days away in the Capital, do you?”

  Pat’s expression turned sour for a moment.

  “Sometimes… sometimes I do feel it would be easier to settle as a servant for some rich bastard…” Then he shook his head and grinned. “But screw them all. The Capital is great, but we have a lot of work to do, and I am here to see what happens next.”

  “How was the Capital anyway, when you were there?”

  Pat turned to Joe. His expression was… indescribable. His eyes widened, like he was in shock, but his smile was genuine, which created a weird mix of fear and nostalgia.

  “It’s… weird. In both ways. It was fun in one moment, horrifying in another. Sometimes both at once. I remember parties, races, Magic tricks, all kinds of weirdos and such… and then one night, a giant living ball of threads with still moving skeletons of rats inside rolls out at me from an alley. Another night, the reality itself gets eaten by something literally within a couple of meters from me. Drunk Mage, who drowned the restaurant with soup. Mages in general…”

  Pat stopped for a second and glanced at Joseph with a thousand-yard stare.

  “Never walk near University at night, unless you become a Mage yourself. Never ever. You hear me, Joe?! Never! Just don’t…”

  Joseph nodded and turned to Roth.

  “Does Capital has a name? Or is it just ‘the Capital’?”

  “Polaris. The city itself is named Polaris, but Capital is easier to remember.”

  “You forgot the second name, Roth,” Ralf added.

  Doctor frowned.

  “Oh, this is a school level of a joke. I thought you were better than that.”

  Now Joe was curious.

  “I still want to hear it.”

  Pat grinned.

  “Roth, you are wrong. We used this name well into our fourth year of university. So, the name is…”