One hastily put together but still hearty dinner-slash-breakfast later, the three sat around the coffee table drinking hot cups of tea.
"So, just to make sure I'm getting this right," began Misha, "what happened was someone - we don't know who - made a Coil all the way around the old location of the Kowloon Walled City park, dragging in all the surrounding buildings, and reshaping them into the actual Walled City. Then they put a guardian in there to make sure it kept on existing, so when we defeated that guardian, the Coil disappeared, and the space went back to normal."
Bran nodded at Misha's summary. "You have the main points down, although, on the topic of guardians, the person who made the Coil didn't actually specify the guardian, the guardian was a naturally occuring part of the Coil due to how transparent it was."
"...Right."
"Do you remember Coral's dream-Coil and the grey walls in it? That was a guardian too," said Bran.
"Oh! So in the little girl's Coil…?" asked Misha.
"Now that I'm not sure about," replied Bran.
"None of us were in the Coil for very long," Amethyst interjected. "It is possible that, had we remained longer, it would have appeared."
"I see…" said Misha. "Okay, this might be a stupid question but… why did no one notice?" This had been the number one thing bothering him. Well, the number two thing. The number one thing was Bran and how their knees were almost touching.
"Dream logic," replied Bran. "Or at least, something like it."
"You mean… in the moment, you think it's normal, but once you wake up - or in this case leave - you realise something was wrong? But surely people have been going in and out of the Walled City. I mean, heck, we've been going in and out, why didn't we know?"
"For you and me, it's a little different: you haven't been here for a long time so you just assumed that what you'd learnt over the years about the city was wrong, for me… I knew as soon as I saw the Walled City that it was a Coil," said Bran.
"Why didn't you do tell me? No wait, if you had, then the guardian would have appeared…" muttered Misha.
"Right. And at that point in time, you couldn't even control your transformations."
"True." Misha took a sip of tea. "But couldn't you have done something about it at that time? You had your sword back then too."
Bran sighed and leaned back on his hands. "Yeah, I kind of regret leaving it so late, but I did that because I thought I should wait and find out more first. Besides, I only found out that there was a Coil when I was already in it. The Coil covers the train station too."
Misha thought back to when they first arrived. It had been evening and, yes, Bran was right - the Walled City was right on top of the train station and there was no way of knowing beforehand the state of the outside before going out. What a difficult customer.
"But to answer your question about other people coming and going-" began Bran.
Amethyst set her empty cup of tea on the coffee table. "I believe I can help with that."
"Oh?"
Misha leaned forward and poured her another cup. "How so?"
Amethyst smiled and tapped her fingers on the table in thanks. "You recall the last day we met, the day we went to the wetlands."
"Yeah," said Misha. "Then you scarpered."
Amethyst gave a little cough and took a sip of tea. "I did not 'scarper'," she said a little hautily. "I was merely delayed."
"Ah, you went to the hospital," said Bran.
Amethyst nodded.
"What hospital?" asked Misha.
"You recall the little girl in the Coil, the one you helped find? Cheung Hiu Fa? Her grandfather was sent to hospital after being found slashed rather badly at home. I went to visit him."
"Oh, he's that friend you mentioned then," said Misha.
"You have a good memory," replied the woman, "but I should admit now that I was not being entirely truthful. I had never met the man before, nor had I met the child before, but I can still claim to know them to a certain extent, or at least, I know their blood." She brushed a handful of her long hair behind her shoulder and continued. "Years ago, long before even your parents were born, I was a courtesan, a dancer, and I had a love. He was an official, not a high ranking one, but one all the same, not that I cared. As you have likely surmised, he was already with wife and when I bore him a child…"
The woman sighed and a sudden coldness filled the small room.
"His wife was barren, you see, but he needed an heir. My child, my son, was to be that heir, not that I knew it at the time." She smiled gently as she looked out the window at the opposite end of the room. "I knew of the wife, but my love promised me to be by my side when the time was ripe and indeed, he did come. But instead of holding my hand he took his sword and slit my throat and took my son."
She sighed, composed herself and turned back to her audience.
"But you do not want to hear of misfortunes from another time. To put the matter simply, the grandfather and his granddaughter are descendants of myself and my cruel love, which was why I seeked them out."
"To do what?" asked Bran. Misha had a sneaking suspicion he knew.
"Originally, I thought that to detach myself from this world, I must satisfy my longing for revenge against the cruelty, but…" Amethyst's voice trailed off at this point and the temperature of the room gradually returned to normal. Misha glanced at Bran.
"You didn't kill him," stated Bran.
Amethyst shook her head. "I saw a resemblence, a strong resemblence, yet in talking to him I immediately knew in my spirit that he was different. Same blood, yet still different. So I spared him. And now I can return to answer your question, little dragon."
"Eh?" Misha had been so swept up in the gu-huo-niao's sad story that he'd forgotten his original question.
"The old man told me of the night his granddaughter disappeared," said Amethyst. "He said that 'the walls melted and hell rose up'."
"That sounds like it was the night the Coil went up then," said Misha.
"Indeed. Perhaps by some quirk of fate, both grandfather and granddaughter have a certain affinity for the mystic arts and it was this that caused their eyes to not be clouded when the changes occurred."
Misha frowned. "But…"
"You asked why those who enter and exit the Walled City are not disturbed by its presence," interrupted Bran. "The answer is quite simple. It did not occur to them. Those who were inside the area of the Coil when it went up just thought it had always been that way. People on the outside who saw it, were also affected in that way since it did not occur to them that something so impossible could happen. The same thing went for people going in and out."
"You say it 'did not occur', so what would end up happening if it did occur?" asked Misha.
"That is what happened to me." It was Amethyst who replied this time. "Because the old man told me that the Walled City should not exist, the knowledge that something was wrong entered my mind, so when I tried to return, I found myself unable to enter."
"So that's why we didn't see you for so long!"
"It is," said Amethyst with a nod. "And because I continuously tried to penetrate the Coil, I ended up in a liminal space halfway between the real world and the Coil, unable to escape."
Thankfully the sun had risen by this point and a warm light gently flowed through the living room's single set of windows.
The woman reached into her shawls and pulled out a few crumpled pieces of paper. "While I was in that in between space, I found a few messenger birds that I believe are addressed to you," she said, holding out the papers to Bran.
Bran took them and smoothed them out. "Thank you," he said.
Misha leaned over and saw that one was from Tuesday while another was from a person he didn't know: Malcolm Best.
"You are welcome," replied Amethyst. The woman was still elegant with her shawls and thin fingers, but there was a deeper dishevelment, and it made Misha hope he never had to see what it was like in the space between a Coil and the real world.
"What are your plans now?" Bran asked as he folded up his correspondence and slipped it into his pocket.
The gu-huo-niao smiled at him then at Misha. "Do not worry, I do not plan to abuse your hospitality."
"But where will you go?" asked Misha.
Amethyst laughed. "Anywhere," she said. "Everywhere. I have been tied down to this place for too long, ever since I was… reborn into this body I have been tethered to this land and to the cruelty that had been done to me. But now, that has changed, and I have the two of you to thank for that." As she said this, she moved back from the table and, kneeling, bowed to Bran and Misha.
Flustered, Misha helped Amethyst back up again, telling her that 'it was no trouble' and 'was what anyone would have done', but to that the woman merely smiled that half-shaded smile.
"If you need help, the SSD will give it," said Bran. "You only have to ask."
"I will consider it," replied Amethyst. The first time Helen had brought up the same kind of offer, Amethyst's body language had clearly stated that she would never do such a thing, but this time her body said something different. It was a complete reversal, but there was hope that perhaps she would be able to move past whatever wrongs the Merlin Club had enacted on her in the past.
But not today.