Anastasia and the Cicin Mage narrowly dodged the surging flames.
They looked back at the room being consumed by fire, their hearts still pounding.
"What's happening?"
"Could this be an enemy attack?!"
"Enemy attack?! Secure the scene, fe—"
"Secure nothing! Use your heads! Which fool would dare attack an Executive?"
"It seems... Lady Signora did this herself..."
Outside the Snezhnayan Embassy in Mondstadt, the entire Fatui contingent had spilled out into the night.
The fire had started in Signora's room and was spreading. Left unchecked, the whole embassy would be engulfed before long.
The Cryo Cicin Mages and Mirror Maidens looked toward the Consul, waiting for direction: "Miss Anastasia, should we put the fire out?"
The flames in the night were impossible to miss.
Lights in the surrounding buildings began coming on one by one. People were being drawn to the commotion at the Snezhnayan Embassy.
The Knights of Favonius would arrive to investigate before long. There was no question about that.
Anastasia hesitated. Even she was at a loss.
There were no signs of any intruder inside.
So why had Lady Signora set fire to her own room?
She couldn't make sense of it.
With Lady Signora absent, Anastasia, as Consul, was the one everyone was looking to for a decision.
She nodded: "First, put out the fire. Wait—"
Through the wall of burning flames, Anastasia suddenly caught sight of a figure standing inside the embassy.
Her whole body went rigid.
Could that be...
---
Before long, the Knights of Favonius arrived. They had clearly rushed over the moment the report came in. All three of them were out of breath.
"What's going on here?"
"What happened?"
"Don't just stand there, start putting out the fire!"
They moved to approach but were immediately blocked by two cloaked Debt Collectors.
The lead knight startled: "What is the meaning of this?"
The Debt Collector on the left said in a flat, hoarse voice: "Orders. No one approaches the embassy."
"But the building is on fire! Are you simply going to stand there?"
The two Debt Collectors said nothing. The weight of their gaze from beneath their masks pressed down on the three knights like something physical.
The lead knight, a stout man, stammered: "This is Mondstadt City, not Snezhnaya. If the fire isn't contained and it spreads to the neighboring buildings..."
The Debt Collector said impatiently: "We will handle it."
Being brushed off like this, the lead knight's face tightened with frustration.
But he also knew that in recent years the Fatui had thrown their weight around in every nation, always maintaining this same overbearing posture. It wasn't personal.
That thought made him feel marginally better.
He drew himself up and said with as much firmness as he could manage: "Then you had better handle it properly. If anything goes wrong, I will be reporting directly to Grand Master Jean, and the responsibility will fall entirely on Snezhnaya."
The other two knights exchanged a glance and quietly exhaled. Neither of them wanted a confrontation with the Fatui if it could be avoided. That road led nowhere good.
The three knights didn't leave. They moved to the side and watched the fire from a distance.
At least no one could accuse them of neglecting their duty.
---
Inside the Snezhnayan Embassy, the fire did not spread further. The crimson flames burned concentrated around Signora's room.
Unable to hold herself back any longer, Anastasia had a Cryo Cicin Mage shield her as she entered the fire zone.
When they saw the figure within the flames, their breath stopped.
A woman standing over two meters tall, clad in a blazing red flame skirt. Her face still bore the unmistakable features of Lady Signora. Her entire body was wreathed in fire, her skin marked with patches of molten scarring, as though liquid iron ran beneath the surface rather than blood.
"Lady Signora... is this... her Crimson Witch of Flames form?!"
Anastasia's heart lurched with a complicated mix of awe and excitement.
Even before joining the Fatui, she had heard rumors that Lady Signora commanded two distinct and overwhelming forces.
One was the extreme ice granted by Her Majesty the Tsaritsa. The other was her original power as the Crimson Witch of Flames.
Almost no one had ever witnessed Signora's Crimson Witch form with their own eyes.
Whatever had happened tonight, for Anastasia, who had long admired Signora above all others, this was something extraordinary.
"What a shame I don't have a Kamera from Fontaine on hand," she thought with a trace of genuine regret. "I could have captured this."
The Cryo Cicin Mage beside her suddenly said in a low, uncertain voice: "Miss Anastasia... is Lady Signora... hurting herself?"
Anastasia looked more carefully.
After a moment, she realized the Cicin Mage was right.
Signora in her Crimson Witch form stood alone at the center of the fire, letting the flames consume her. Her skin charred, cracked, and fell away in pieces, only for new skin to grow back through the force of her power, and then be burned away again.
Over and over.
"Ugh... ugh..."
Sounds of pain escaped her lips, low and barely contained. Hearing them, both Anastasia and the Cicin Mage felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.
What kind of grief ran that deep?
Even so, Signora did not spare herself. She let the flames devour her body again and again without stopping.
With each flicker of pain across her face, something wilder and more determined took its place.
Something like liquid fire slid slowly down her cheeks.
The two of them felt as though they were witnessing a soul in the depths of despair, pouring out some unbearable grief through the only means available to her.
Then the practical reality of their situation caught up with both of them at the same moment. Cold sweat broke out. They pressed their mouths shut and did not move.
Under these circumstances, making a sound was out of the question.
Anyone with common sense understood that a superior caught in a moment of vulnerability like this would not be pleased to find witnesses. And Signora was not known for her mercy. Who had ever seen her like this before? Would she silence them afterward?
The thought made both of them go cold in a different way from the fire around them.
But they didn't dare turn and leave either. That would be just as bad. Signora had certainly noticed them already.
There was nothing to do but stand there and wait.
---
After a long time, it finally ended.
The flames on Signora dissipated. Her Delusion flared with a sharp, cold light. Ice carrying a biting chill surged out and extinguished the remaining embers, pressing the Crimson Witch's power back down.
Signora returned to the composed, alluring Executive in white.
She raised her ice-blue eyes and looked at the two who had been standing there watching for quite some time.
That gaze made Anastasia and the Cicin Mage flinch.
"Lady Signora, we were only concerned for your wellbeing, so we..."
Feeling the temperature of that look drop further, Anastasia had a sudden flash of clarity and said:
"Your Excellency. We have found the Anemo Archon Barbatos."
Silence fell.
Then the air temperature seemed to plunge by tens of degrees in a single instant.
"Oh? You say... you have found Barbatos?"
Signora's voice, carried on a biting wind, reached Anastasia's ears.
She stepped forward, moving on those smooth, pale legs, her eyes gleaming with an icy blue light in the darkness.
Anastasia broke into a cold sweat: "We believe it is him..."
"You believe?" Signora's eyes narrowed.
"I-it's like this, Lady Signora..."
Anastasia did not dare hesitate. She recounted everything the Cicin Mage had witnessed in quick, careful detail, adding a small amount of embellishment for good measure.
As Signora listened, her expression grew colder and colder.
"Send someone to follow them and confirm the bard's identity. If it truly is Barbatos, hmph..."
She left the words unfinished, turned, and walked away.
---
Since the day centuries ago when she had met Pierro the Jester and received the Tsaritsa's gift of ice to extinguish the ever-burning flame, Signora had not lost control like this.
The Delusion's power did not only allow her to wield ice. It also allowed her to freeze her past, to keep the worst of those painful memories from tormenting her day after day.
But tonight's dream had broken through that barrier. She had lived through that shattered past once more.
She had watched everything she cherished be torn apart in the calamity.
The Delusion had shown her the past and the future. It had shown her the shortsightedness and the failures of the gods.
At this moment, the pale flames within Signora burned fiercer than they had in a long time.
Signora had nothing left.
Family. Her beloved. Her friends. Even her own name.
Everything was gone.
And that only hardened her resolve. Even as a tool, she would burn down this rotting old world for Her Majesty the Tsaritsa.
Her goal, like Her Majesty the Tsaritsa's, had never changed.
Both of them were striving for the same unstained future.
---
At this same moment, inside the Favonius Cathedral, Ji An found himself in an extremely awkward situation.
"Mmph... mmph mmph!"
The warm, soft figure in his arms was struggling.
This isn't good, he thought.
He loosened the hand he had pressed over the girl's mouth.
"Don't be frightened. I'm genuinely not a bad person."
The girl's clothing appeared to be a church sister's uniform, though with some notable differences. The design was more lively and decorative than a standard one.
She had twin curled pigtails, a stretch of fair, pale skin visible at her shoulder, and white stockings. The overall impression was undeniably cute.
Hearing his words, she went still for a moment.
Her light blue eyes fixed on Ji An with an expression that said quite plainly: given what you are currently doing, do you really think that's convincing?
Seeing that she had calmed down somewhat, Ji An said carefully:
"I'll let you go. First, please don't scream, and let me explain. All right?"
The young sister gave a small, cautious nod.
Ji An released his hand. "Here's the situation. For the safety of Mondstadt, my companions and I came to borrow the Skyward Lyre—"
"The Skyward Lyre?! Guards— mmph! Mmph!"
The sister, who had been relatively composed, became agitated the moment she heard those words. Ji An had no choice but to cover her mouth again.
Forget trying to explain. She wasn't going to hear it.
He sighed.
He looked anxiously toward the inner rooms of the church: "What is taking Lumine and Paimon so long? It's just a lyre."
As the thought crossed his mind, Lumine and Paimon appeared.
Ji An exhaled with relief when he saw the harp in Lumine's hands.
"Sorry for the wait. It's entirely Paimon's fault for insisting on tasting the church's holy spring water. Huh?"
Lumine noticed the girl in Ji An's arms. Her expression shifted into something that carried a faint edge: "Ji An. Who is she?"
"I don't know either. A sister from the church, I think. We didn't notice her before; she was asleep on a chair at the back. She woke up while I was keeping watch, and I had to do this to stop her from raising the alarm."
Ji An said helplessly.
Lumine: "Never mind the details. We have what we came for. We need to move."
Paimon: "Right, if those Knights of Favonius outside figure out what happened, we're in trouble."
Ji An looked at the young sister still held against him. "What do we do about her?"
Lumine glanced over: "Knock her out."
Young sister: "Mmph mmph!?"
Ji An: "..."
---
Although Ji An had watched plenty of martial arts dramas in his past life where experienced fighters could knock someone unconscious with a single precise strike, in practice it was nowhere near that simple.
Knocking the young sister out without actually hurting her was a considerably more delicate problem than it sounded.
"Let me try," Lumine said, looking rather willing.
Paimon: "Ehehe, Paimon wants a turn too."
What kind of villains are you two...
The young sister's eyes went wide with terror. In desperation, she bit down hard on Ji An's hand.
"Ow!"
Ji An let go. The young sister sucked in a breath and screamed: "Thieves! Guards!"
The guards outside had apparently heard. Footsteps came rushing toward them.
Ji An and Lumine exchanged a look.
"Freeze! Who are you people? Miss Barbara?!"
A Knight of Favonius shoved the door open, pointing at them.
Paimon: "We've been caught! Run!"
Ji An and the others bolted for the exit.
---
Outside the Favonius Cathedral, sitting on the railing with his legs dangling, was Venti.
This particular person had asked them for help and then spent the entire time lounging outside.
Paimon said urgently: "We've been seen! Run!"
Venti blinked.
By then, knights had appeared on all sides of the church. The one who had spotted them must have called for backup the moment he entered.
"Stop them! They stole the Skyward Lyre!"
"Thieves! Don't move!"
"Don't bother running. You're surrounded."
---
Paimon: "What do we do?! Every exit is blocked!"
"Follow me!"
Venti brought his hands together.
A wind field gathered around him in an instant.
He looked at Lumine: "You still remember how to use a wind glider?"
Lumine nodded.
Ji An: "I don't think I have one of those."
"That's fine."
Lumine put her arm around his waist: "I'll carry you."
Ji An opened his mouth.
Well. That works.
She had held him the same way during the Stormterror fight.
Venti laughed: "Then off we go!"
Carried by the wind field, they looped through the air above the cathedral, cleared the ring of knights closing in below, and came down in a quiet corner of the city.
Venti peered out carefully: "The Knights are sweeping the whole city now. Staying out in the open isn't safe. I know a place we can go."
Ji An asked: "Where?"
Venti smiled: "A tavern I frequent. Angel's Share."
-------
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