Mucha didn't notice Dill's abnormality; he wore the scented bag around his waist, along with the most important sword of a knight.
The cold, damp air blew from the lake, and Dill snapped back to her senses, looking up to meet the teenager's smile as bright as the rising sun. Good, he's perked up. The young girl barely managed to give him a weak smile back, the looking glass under her hand packing up with a scream.
Dill'a, Dill'a, get rid of your unnecessary sympathy; you should mind your business first.
She planned to take her leave first, saying, "I have business with the mayor later."
"The mayor may not be able to see you; he went to Sir Elder's early in the morning."
Dill remembered the argument at the sanctuary the day before and couldn't help but ask curiously, "Are they planning to burn down the forest?"
Mucha is silent for a moment before slowly saying, "Lord Elder didn't go back to Senlun Castle at midnight last night, and we have a lot of things to ask him."
Jose will be glad of this news. Dill thought silently in her heart. Mucha suddenly took a step forward, his back to the sun, shadows obscuring most of his expression. "The mayor is worried that the werewolves will start spreading plague and chaos as they have done before, and with today's twilight prayers, they are bound to want a result."
"Results?" Dill heard that disturbing fly call again, but she didn't even think to reach up and rub her ears now, letting the uneasy foreboding take her to the outlines of doom.
Mucha seemed reluctant to speak up but gave in to the young girl's gaze and refused to move away.
"A random scapegoat, a result that everyone is willing to accept, to temporarily soothe last night's commotion."
Scapegoat. Dill's mind flashed back to Mrs. Cole's distracted face in the morning.
She looked at the knight in front of her and subconsciously asked, "Would you agree?"
Mucha didn't answer right away; she just looked at Dill quietly.
Dill barely managed to pull out a smile as she pretended to adjust the medicine cabinet on her back and was about to turn around to leave.
"I won't."
The voice from behind her was as light as a gust of wind, but Dill couldn't help but turn back.
The sun poured down on his face, and the teenager's eyes were pure green, approaching a searing gold color, and though they weren't quite the same as Amber's, Dill felt that they shone just the same, too bright to look at, and both held power.
"I won't let any more innocents be sacrificed, I swear to you."
Dill forgot what she had answered; she only remembered the sun's warmth on her face.
She had to get back to Cole's house before the sun went down, and with the sound of the swiftly passing wind whispering in her ears, Dill knew she wasn't going the wrong way.
Vaguely, the murmurs seemed to form clear sentences, and she heard a light children's song:
"Jingle bells, jingle bells, black hats, and children in red hats have to be home before the sun goes down."
There was a group of children playing around Lily in front of the door, singing and dancing in good humor, but Dill heard from a distance the old hound among them, growling and snarling in a low growl.
She recognizes one of the kids smashing the window with her looking glass and lets the goose bite right in without a fuss.
The children's laughter turned to screams, and with a powerful slapping of their wings, they scattered at once. Dill rushed up to check on Lily.
Thankfully, the girl appeared to be unharmed; only her birthmark was smeared with paint, and her watery eyes looked as if they were about to burst into tears. Lily was wearing a red hood that Dill hadn't seen before, and as soon as she saw Dill, she immediately dropped her hat and jumped into the young girl's arms.
"Lily, it's okay..."
"Don't give me to Mr. Coyote!"
Dill remembered what Mucha had said and couldn't help but hug Lily tightly.
"No one's going to send you there; they're messing around. It's morning; where would a coyote come from?"
Dill felt a weight in her arms, and the girl's little head shook hard.
"The coyotes will be here when the bell rings."
Dill thought of the girl's nightmare last night and guiltily touched her head, trying to divert her attention. "Look at the many sheep baaing on the mountain; there are no coyotes at all."
The old hound wagged his tail and came over. He licked Lily a few times, and it was not easy to coax the girl to smile.
"I have heard Mr. Coyote speak."
The child's playful words were like a breeze caressing the grass, but Dill felt the air choke for a moment.
She could hear a shrill, unusual screech; the insect fly of doom seemed to smell carrion; and Dill chose to catch the flash of aura.
Memories quickly rewind as she thinks of the first night when Lily suddenly blurted out about the big coyote and the girl's bizarre nightmare last night, which was right after the bell had rung.
She couldn't help but ask eagerly, "What did Mr. Coyote say?"
"I can't say," the head in her arms shook its head eagerly.
The young girl softened her voice and asked differently, as if she were making small talk, "So Lily, have you seen Mr. Coyote?"
"Uh ......"
"Have you told the others about Mr. Coyote?"
The girl in her arms shook so violently that Dill felt a slight wetness on her chest; she was crying!
Just as Dill regretted wanting to give up, the girl lifted her face, both eyes as red as a calico cat's, and her voice trembled as she replied, "I told Daddy, that's why Daddy keeps sleeping, and I don't want my sister to keep falling asleep and not waking up, too."
A thousand thoughts flashed through Dill's mind, but in the end, they all turned into a soothing cry: "Daddy's just sick."
"He's always here, isn't he?" She wiped the paint from the girl's face with her handkerchief.
The large black birthmark spread like splattered ink from the bridge of her nose to her right eye socket, leaving a so-called demonic mark on the girl's face, but to Dill, it looked like a mask with a black veil over it, making the girl's green eyes even more mysteriously beautiful.
Lily smiled as she touched the birthmark cherishingly, then remembered something and said carefully, "Daddy said not to tell anyone about the coyotes."
Mr. Cole knew?
Dill swept a glance around the neighborhood with her eyes; the vast meadow had no barriers, and even if someone glimpsed it from afar, they would only think it was a young girl comforting a young child.
"So did Daddy say anything else?"
She sidestepped the werewolf's question and sidestepped it.
"Did he say anything else before he fell asleep?"
Sure enough, Lily hesitated and nodded. "Dad said before he fell asleep that he gave the antidote to the plague to the Death Guard."
The antidote to the plague? The Grim Reaper?
Dill couldn't help but frown.
Mr. Cole was a plague doctor who had saved countless lives, and it was for that reason that the townspeople decided that the disease that killed him must have come from the werewolf curse.
But now Lily was saying that Mr. Cole had found an antidote to the curse before he died? There can't be an antidote to a curse unless...
Dill loosened her frown.
It wasn't a curse at all.
What Mr. Cole found might not have been an antidote to anything.
Dill handed the old hound to Lily, and she let the girl hold the dog. She stood up and took a step toward Cole's house.
If she was right...
With each step, Dill's heart beat a little faster, and what had been a headless stream of broken words now sounded like a whole swarm of sharpened bees. The more they whispered, the more they terrorized, and the more Dill knew she wasn't going the wrong way.
The crisis was a turnaround, and while there might be the fangs of calamity ahead, there could also be the bright light of an exit flashing by.
She arrived at Mr. Cole's study, and the small prayer window was now framed with blue sky and white clouds like an exquisite painting. The only trace of last night's nightmare peeking out was beside the window: a monstrous bird's beak mask casting a scimitar-like shadow, the empty glass orbs silent as they stared at the young girl.
The antidote to the plague is given to the guardian of death.