The black curtain fell from the skyline, covering the entire Westfall underneath.
Bossia sat leaning against the window sill, her right elbow resting on her bent knee, her knuckles supporting her jaw, her eyes falling on a street corner dozens of meters away. The little bugs in the night fluttered aimlessly around the window frame, like driftwood floating with the waves in the sea. She had been silent for a long time.
Jorgen sat on the other side of the room, separated by a wall. He could hear Hisek busy smelting materials and making objects in the workshop.
That morning, he had Bossia take out the key, and Hisek recognized it. He anxiously asked Bossia where she got the key from, but she refused to say. Jorgen did not force her to reveal her identity and prevented Hisek from further questioning. "This is not something you should know yet," he said at the time.
"Jorgen." Bossia spoke.
"What?"
"I can't think about it anymore. It's such a headache."
"Then don't think about it anymore."
"Do you always have to consider so many things?"
"It's my job. How about this, Bossia. Tell me what's on your mind. I'll sort it out for you."
"Anyone forced by you to speak their mind must be in agony."
"Not necessarily. People fear being judged arbitrarily by others for what's on their mind, so they don't want to say it. But I never judge, I treat them like a carpenter treats a nail. Tell me about the key."
"Didn't I already say? He gave it to me before coming to Moonbrook Town for the first time after being released from prison."
"If it had been yesterday, I could have been satisfied with that answer. But after hearing Hisek's words today, things won't be that simple. Tell me everything about the key, such as where he got it from?"
"I hate people like you the most," Bossia vigorously fanned away the little bugs flying in front of her eyes, "prying into other people's minds at every opportunity, like jackals. Always information, information, information. You'd better be locked up forever with a bunch of speechless stone statues."
Jorgen did not answer. A moment later, Bossia couldn't help but raise her voice: "Not angry at all being spoken to like that? Still waiting for me to answer the question? If I don't answer, are you going to put a dagger to my throat?"
"I will. What reason do you think I have not to interrogate you?"
"Oh, you... I've had enough."
Bossia strode out of the window sill and started running. The echo of her hurried and irregular footsteps rang out on the silent street. She didn't know why she wanted to run, she just felt the urge. She climbed up the hillside next to the old houses, enduring the discomfort of gravel under her feet, letting her horizon gradually rise above the rooftops of the town and extend to the beach in the distance. She almost fell once, supporting herself with her left hand on the ground, feeling something hard suddenly pierce into her palm. Just then, Jorgen caught up and grabbed her.
"Let me go," Bossia said, "let me leave here."
"Where are you going to run to?"
"I don't know."
Jorgen let go of her hand. "Alright, run away then. To be honest, it's not that hard to avoid this matter. I know there's a newly dug mine cave nearby, you can go work there. They won't let women go down the mine, but you can stir food in a big cauldron for those miners. You can marry a miner, and he'll hide you well. No? Then go south, to Bramble Valley, hunt for yourself to fill your belly, find a cave every day and cover it with beast skins to sleep. Take your pick. Believe me, living like this for two or three years, you'll forget it all. Forget that you were once a paladin, fell in love with a silly little singer. You'll become someone else, and Xiao'er won't track you down anymore, if he lives that long. Can you do it?"
Bossia did not speak. She lowered her head and covered her eyes with the side of her palm that was not stained with mud.
"See, you can't do it. Bossia, some troubles can't be escaped, especially for someone of your status. In my line of work, I've seen too many people who can't escape their destiny, including my best friend. If after taking the first step on your own, you choose to run away, I won't stop you. Just over that hill, you can see the light near the mine. Do you remember the alias I gave you? You can have it accompany you for life."
"Say no more..."
Jorgen sighed and no longer looked directly at Bossia, who was sitting on the muddy ground and hiding her face. He waited. The smell of rotting wood and beast fur reached his nose.
"He didn't know himself..." Bossia said in a very soft voice.
"What?"
"Neil, Neil himself didn't know where the key came from. He said the night before he was released from prison, lying there, he felt something poking his back, so he took off his prison uniform to look...and found a small pleat sewn on the back of the prison uniform, with this key hidden inside."
"How did he get it out of prison?"
"He tied one end of a thin string to the key, swallowed it, and tied the other end to his tooth root, that's how he got it out."
"That's easy to understand. But did he say why the key was found in the pleat of his prison uniform?"
"That uniform wasn't his. On the morning before finding the key, it was his turn to do laundry duty and distribute washed clothes by serial number. Neil said maybe it got mixed up then..."
Jorgen remembered the warden's words: After Neil's first release from prison, Tortoro became irritable. Then there was the old man's interrogation of him.
"Bossia, it looks like you've chosen to continue investigating. That's good, because this matter is almost clear now. Now I need you to do something for yourself."
A dozen minutes later, they returned to the house. Jorgen called the siblings over and then said to Bossia, "Alright, go ahead."
Bossia hesitated for a moment, then softly sang the wordless song Neil had taught her. Feeling a little awkward, the notes were not very coherent, but the siblings immediately recognized the mellow yet fragile melody.
"That's it," Hisek said, "I only heard the music box play once, but I absolutely won't forget that tune. Miss, who exactly are you?"
"I can tell you now," Jorgen said, "Neil taught it to her."
"Neil? Oh, that makes sense...Neil and Father were very close, and he could remember any tune, so Father would have him compose for other music boxes. He must have had Neil listen to this tune too."
Bossia found Katie looking at her, but in Katie's eyes there was not accusation, but sadness. Bossia took a deep breath, and the melody echoing in her mind now was not from her own humming. She recalled that afternoon, by the lake where the sun shone politely on the water's surface, Neil carefully yet sensitively handed those beautiful fragmented notes to her ear, one by one, squeezing and bumping into each other from his lips to form a melody. At the time, their meaning was so simple, but now everything was different.
Bossia felt she was about to sink into an illusion of the past, until Katie handed her a handkerchief. Only then did she realize she was crying. She did not take the handkerchief, but wiped her tears like a child with the back of her hand. Katie wiped her tears with her hand on Bossia's face, Bossia overlapped her own hand on top, at first wanting to move Katie's hand away, but she was quickly drawn in by the difference between the two hands. One was white and delicate despite having held weapons, the other rough and sturdy, covered in tiny cracks. Then, looking into Katie's sincere eyes, she suddenly understood the real reason she could not be with Neil. She felt Katie understood her too.
After staying a few days, Jorgen decided to return to Stormwind. He knew that with what they now had, it would be more than enough for the High Priest to use political power to lift the charges against Bossia. Part of this matter had become quite clear in his mind.
The one who stole the key from the siblings' adoptive father was Tortoro, who was later imprisoned for other crimes. Like all prisoners would do, he also brought into prison what could ensure his life there - the golden key. He carefully preserved it, but one day, by some fluke, it fell into Neil's hands.
Just then, the old man who had obtained the music box tracked Tortoro down to retrieve the key. Naturally, Tortoro could not hand over the key and was severely tortured. Commissioning a music box that automatically destroyed itself if used improperly and killing the maker was clearly to monopolize what was inside - that song. Although there was no evidence, Jorgen believed that near the time of Neil's second imprisonment, the old man had accidentally discovered that he also knew how to sing this tune. He could not tolerate this and decided to kill him - just as a two-birds-with-one-stone tactic to achieve his political purpose against the High Priest and wrongly involved the innocent Bossia.
Only this could explain why Bossia could leave prison unharmed wearing the key the old man was looking for. Jorgen remembered Bossia saying she refused to cooperate in prison and did not utter a word. If the old man knew the key was on her, he would not have allowed her to do so.
Perhaps the key to the problem was the role of the song and the relationship between the siblings' adoptive father and the old man. But Jorgen knew that these questions might never be answered. The music box had fallen into the hands of the old man, and the poor toy maker was long dead. What Jorgen wanted to do now was just to free the girl from the whole affair, and then consider his next move. All this required a safe return to Stormwind.
On the day they left Moonbrook Town, watching the siblings bidding farewell at the village entrance, Jorgen suddenly began to think about why he was doing all this. He hadn't thought about this question for a long time. The meaning of all he had found out for Bossia far outweighed its meaning for himself. But he quickly stopped these thoughts, because he knew that from the beginning, he could not turn back.