Lanterns of every color gleamed above the main thoroughfare, while the aroma of sweets and incense drifted through the night. The crowds were huge, the streets packed. The humdrum chatter of daily life was replaced by a lively clamor, so loud in parts it sounded like a waterfall.

The Festival of Light had long outgrown the promenade that once held it. It was a testament to Varant's ever-increasing prosperity—as if the bleakness of the land, and the weight of its duty could be shouted down by a celebration that glowed brighter, roared louder every year. These days, even the main thoroughfare struggled to contain the crush of people that flowed through.

Outside the cathedral, however, where the crowd was thickest, it was completely silent. Devout and tourist alike stood in quiet reverence, more polite than awed, watching the solemn ceremony a certain Saintess was drudgingly carrying out at the top of the cathedral steps.

"And so it is we give thanks to God for his gift of light. Without it, we could not see through the dark. Were it not for the light, we could not fight the shadows. Who among us does not depend on it?" Sophie orated in complete monotone, not bothering to stifle her yawn, or hide the fact that she was reading straight from a piece of parchment. "Light is the most essential of gifts. Without it, there could be no brightness in the world. And if there were nothing shining in this world, we would be left in the dark."

Someone in the crowd yawned, before hastily disguising it as a cough. A baby began to cry as she droned on.

The former Saintess Renea, for all her falsehoods, had spoken with an uncommon grace, a command of language that lent voice to sincere, radiant joy.

Saintess Sophia on the other hand…

"Without light, day would never come, and there would only be night. Without night, we are blind—" Sophie paused, squinting at her own handwriting, then corrected herself. "Within night… we are blind and filled with terror. But within day, there is night. Light. There is light."

Finally reaching the end of the page, she sighed, resting a few moments as if she'd just completed a tedious, verbal marathon. "And so, in thanks and hope for tomorrow, let us light our prayers, returning light to God."

She walked over to a small trestle. On top of it stood an already lit candle, as well as five prayer lanterns—frames of wicker, covered in colored, waxed paper, meant to lift their light into the heavens once lit.

Sophie took the candle and lit the first red lantern. "We return this flame of love to God, and ask that he continues to kindle our hearts."

The red lantern's waxed body swelled, the dancing flame inside giving it a color like ruby as it slowly drifted upward. A murmur rippled through the crowd at the sight.

She lit the blue lantern. "We thank God for the time He has given us and offer what light we bear toward the stars, praying that one day we may share in life eternal."

The golden lantern. "We show our awe toward the truth, as sure as the light of the sun, that we are here and through His hands came to be. And we plead for the wisdom to never lose this truth."

Then the green lantern. "And we cherish this world that God has given us, spreading the light of our hopes through the land, such that all may join together and protect it."

"Then…"

Sophie hesitated, staring at the black lantern. The silence that followed was too long to be ceremonial, and there were those in the crowd who believed she'd simply forgotten the sacred invocation.

"We remember those that have left us," Sophie finally said, her words stiff. "They have passed before us to a place we cannot see."

Once again, she fell quiet for a few moments. Then she lit the black lantern. "Through the dark veil, the light of our faith is hidden. But we watch it rise and know with certainty it still burns."

She held the lantern for a long time before letting it go. Slowly it rose, its dark frame barely visible against the night. It drifted past the cathedral's steps, out over the crowd, and climbed up into the sky, joining the rest of the lanterns.

Though they'd all spread out, the wind bore them in the same direction, carrying them far away from the cathedral. Watching their light dwindle, and the black lantern all but vanish, Sophie was struck by the odd sensation that she was the one receding.

On a whim, she raised her hand. The melody of her blessing could be heard humming softly, and bright white ribbons arced through the air, seeming to chase after the lanterns—gliding past them, as if to guide their path.

And Sophie, against the bright light she had conjured, caught one last glimpse of it: the black lantern.

Half the crowd believed this was part of the rites, and broke into cheers. Those who knew better turned curious gazes toward the Saintess, who up to this moment had seemed as if she wished to be anywhere else.

Her arm still lingered in the air, as if she were reaching.

Eyes narrowed. Lips pursed. Ennieux tilted her head just so, lining her right eye with the ring pinched between her thumb and forefinger. Her shoulders drew taut, and she flicked her wrist, tossing the ring perfectly onto a wooden spike.

The gathered crowd gasped behind her.

"Well mercy me! She's landed the sixth ring!" the gamekeeper called out. "First of the night! But will the seventh, smallest one land true?"

"What a shilly game. Hmph!" Ennieux scoffed before taking a swig of mead from a plain wooden cup.

She set it down on a small stand, right next to a clay wolf, a gelé primevère which had been brushed with beeswax and pressed into a thin slat of wood, and various other trinkets she'd won from various festival games. Having absconded from the plaza and followed through on her flustered affectation of cheer, Ennieux discovered that she was, apparently, quite the stall-killer.

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Crossing the stage to take the final ring from the gamekeeper, Ennieux frowned. This one was about as small as a wedding band.

Somewhat irked by the sight, she skipped all the pageantry, letting instinct guide her hand—pitching the small ring without a second thought.

Lo and behold, it struck the spike, wobbling perilously at the tip for a breathless moment, still spinning as it sank to the bottom. Ennieux gave an exaggerated shrug, tilting her head with a cheeky smirk.

The crowd went wild.

"Then I suppose, milady, this prize is yours," the gamekeeper gaped amidst the cheers, color drained from his face. "I'll truly be damned… Ten long years I've run this contest, and always kept tucked away this prize."

"All thish ado over some mysterioush treasure," Ennieux drawled, basking in the crowd. "Well! Someone had to unveil it!"

The gamekeeper stooped to a chest at his side, and with a look of regret drew out a small velvet box. And when Ennieux saw what was inside, her smirk pinched.

"Oh—such a precious thing, I could hardly take it—" Ennieux waffled.

"Nay, I could not look at my own reflection in the water if I were to cheat you," the gamekeeper said wistfully, bittersweet tears in his eyes. "'Tis but tin, yet I believe it is as beautiful as platinum."

"...Mmhm," Ennieux nodded. She couldn't possibly refuse him now.

The crowd cheered as the gamekeeper placed a silver-colored circlet upon Ennieux's head, taking care not to disturb the goldenvow she already wore in her hair.

It was a replica of the Saintess's circlet. A thin imitation, and a tin one at that. It sparkled shamelessly in the festival light, its exaggerated luster almost a parody.

"Everyone, another round of applause for our Saintess of the Toss!" the gamekeeper shouted out.

"Truly—Saintess of the Toss?—please, no—" Ennieux looked about, her protests too quiet and timid for the raucous crowd to hear.

So, she gave up, raising her hand weakly in triumph, and smiling with all the enthusiasm of a defaced statue. She waved half-heartedly for the crowd, the frail sense of glory she'd managed to claim from conquering the festival's frivolous amusements already crumbling into a fine dust.

That was when she spotted two familiar faces in the crowd that made her heart jolt. She unconsciously touched the circlet in her hair and groaned.

Just a few paces away, her children were making their way through the stalls, oblivious to their mother's coronation.

"Camille…" Nicolas ventured. "If they have not returned, they must still be enjoying themselves."

"It is likelier they've been kidnapped by bandits," Camille retorted dryly.

"If they were taken by bandits, then why are we searching the festival?" Nicolas asked, baffled.

"I did not mean it liter—oh, just help me search!" Camille groaned.

They hardly looked up toward the stage, where their mother was attempting to make a surreptitious escape.

"Milady—your things!" the gamekeeper called out frantically, unsure why the lady of honor was acting like a fugitive.

"Ah." Ennieux glanced at the pile of junk she'd accumulated from the festival. Shuffling over, she took a sloshing gulp of mead before jumping off the stage to jostle her way through the bewildered audience.

And as she vanished into the crush of the festival, the crowd gave one last cheer for the Saintess of the Toss.

Bea sat perched on her father's shoulders, while Platopus sat on his head. Ciel stood by, a small smile crossing her lips as she bit into her candied apple, a subtle shine in her eyes as she savored its sweet crunch.

Sigurd, meanwhile, was attempting to win at tin can alley, despite the precocious encumbrance. His jaw was clenched in concentration. He pitched the wooden ball. It struck the bottom-center can dead on, yet the pyramid only shivered. Not a single can fell.

He placed a copper—now, one of many—onto the stall counter.

In short, when Ailn and Renea found them, the whole family was thoroughly enjoying the festival.

"...You know it's rigged, right?" Ailn asked, incredulously.

"That is a dire, dire accusation. One I should hardly accept, even from the duke," the woman running the stall remarked with feigned affront.

The commander of the Azure Knights ignored both of them. And his next pitch of the wooden ball hit the very top of the tin-can pyramid. Yet even that lone can refused to fall.

Another copper found its way onto the stall counter.

"Umm…" Renea stared in bafflement at her supposed tactical genius of an older brother, who kept playing a game they all knew was fixed. She shook her head quickly, catching herself before she got too distracted. "B-Bea! We um, had some… Ani and I needed to ask you something."

"Me?" Bea tilted her head, from atop her father's shoulders.

When Ennieux fled from the plaza, Ailn and Renea had prioritized finding Bea over giving chase. It was a tough call: especially with Horace slinking into the crowds, and Safi and Ceric still at large to possibly mess the night up even further.

But ultimately, the benefits of precognition trumped Ailn's hesitance to leave those threads dangling.

"We were just thinking of your drawings, Bea—all the things you were excited to see," Ailn said smoothly. "Renea and I were hoping we could get some advice. We've been off-kilter all evening, and hoped we could salvage the night."

"Aunt Ahnew and Uncle Horace were supposed to be here…" Bea tilted her head, then her lip trembled as realization sank in. "Did I mess everything up…?"

"N-no! No, we messed up! Ani and I are the bad ones!" Renea broke in. But Bea was already starting to sniffle.

"Are you two upsetting her?" Sigurd asked, angling his head back with a narrowed gaze.

"They're just talking, Sigurd," Ciel replied evenly. She looked into her daughter's bleary eyes, reading them. And after a few thoughtful moments, she asked, "Had you something you wished to tell Uncle Ailn and Aunt Renea?"

Bea nodded quietly.

"Take your time in gathering your thoughts," Ciel said softly.

"Mama, carry me…" Bea reached her arms out for her mother to take her. Then, once she was safely nestled in her mother's arms, she peered past her shoulder, as though gazing into the distance.

A complicated expression crossed Ciel's face. But she said nothing, and simply rubbed her daughter's back.

Now with full faculty of motion, Sigurd threw the hollow, wooden ball with all his might, eschewing decorum. The entire pyramid of cans started to lean backward, its center of gravity fully disrupted.

Yet before their eyes, it seemed to snap back together, as if an invisible force had compelled it whole.

"What?!" Sigurd gritted his teeth.

"Sigurd," Ciel murmured. "It is not the oblivious whom cheats strike deepest, but the prideful."

Bea rubbed her eyes, turning to face Ailn and Renea again.

"I think… Aunt Ahnew and Uncle Horace would have fun watching the fireworks outside the big walls," Bea said.

"...Outside the walls?" Ailn asked, trying to keep the weariness out of his tone. "We have to convince Ennieux to go out of the city?"

"And you should go find your funny friends," Bea said solemnly. "The lady who talks a lot. And the man who always says silly things."

"Them?" Ailn winced.

"You gotta find them," Bea nodded. "'Cause… they know how to talk good."

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