My investigations later revealed that most of the sancta the fake Carredura was selling had never existed to begin with. They were created ex nihilo from pure magical energy.
So this fake Carredura could create sancta. A few of her wares were actual objects she had gotten somewhere, but those with the most dramatic effects were sancta she had fashioned herself.
I continued tracking her every move, but in the end it didn’t come to much. Maybe someone with some sort of grudge against Carredura was behind the crimes.
Meanwhile, I kept trying to visit her, but her staff would always say, “Please go home.” They seemed to be under orders not to let me through. I used to be able to simply walk into her office; now I couldn’t even get close.
Instead, I wrote letters warning her of the danger.
She never replied.
It wasn’t long before she abdicated the throne. I spent the winter mourning my powerlessness, my inability to do anything, but of course spring still came, and with it the ship that made port here every year.
From the steady stream of customers that visited my shop, I learned that Carredura was expected to leave this land. I went around to speak to all the former mages. They had always kept close ranks and didn’t look favorably on a sancta dealer like me, but when I begged them to let me say one last good-bye to Carredura, they took pity and told me where she was staying.
The only question was, What was I going to say when I saw her?
I took some time to collect my thoughts, then set out.
As it happened, I bumped into Carredura on my way!
“Goodness,” I said. There she was—those eyes, dark as the depths of the sea. The black hair and clothes like a mourning outfit. “Carredura…”
As long as it had been since I’d seen her last, she looked practically unchanged. I bowed my head to her and apologized. I told her I was sorry that I hadn’t been able to give her help when she was cornered, that I hadn’t been able to get rid of the rumors swirling around town. I was sorry that she felt she had to leave the country her teacher had created. I knew my apologies would not solve any of these problems, but it was important to me to at least tell her I was sorry.
And Carredura? She smiled at me softly, almost gentle. “Oh, it’s all right.” I had never seen such a smile on her face before. The only thing that shocked me more than her expression was what she said next. “I’ve decided I’m not going to leave this land after all.” She bowed to me. “I’m going to stay here and continue granting the townsfolk’s wishes.”
With that, she left. As soon as she was gone, I realized I must have just encountered the imposter Carredura. Something was terribly wrong. I went to the house where Carredura had sequestered herself—and that was where I found her collapsed by the front door.
The real Carredura was already dead.
Her ticket for the ship was still clutched in her hand.
“The Carredura we know today was born just after we lost our country’s founder—our first queen, Cururunelvia. It was a time when people were confused and very anxious about the future,” Riviere told us.
She spoke of many dark wishes. Of a time of anxiety and despair. How the terrible prayers that people had prayed in those days had brought forth Antiques Carredura.
When I thought about it, it was true—so much of what Carredura as I knew her had done was focused entirely on using sancta to make people unhappy.
Elaina grunted. “What you’re saying is that Antiques Carredura is a manifestation of the malice of those people long ago, forever trying to accomplish their boneheaded prayers.”
Even her murder of the real Carredura was presumably because of a wish from someone who opposed her.
Riviere nodded. “That’s right. That’s why she lives on even now, never aging.”
Riviere wasn’t even sure if living was the right word for it.
When she’d said Carredura wasn’t an ordinary human, she’d been telling the truth.
It also explained why we could never predict exactly what she was going to do—because she was a thing, not a person. And of course, it was why we couldn’t use the Memory-Guiding Specimen to find her: because it only worked for living human beings.
“And here I thought we might finally have a sancta that could lead us to Carredura… What a disappointment,” Henri said, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
We knew who Carredura was, but we still didn’t know how to find her. At this very moment, she might be leading someone astray, and by the time we found out, it would be too late. Gloom descended upon Riviere Antiques.
We sat in silence. Was there really nothing we could do?
“Maybe there’s, like…a sancta that finds other sancta,” I suggested. If we couldn’t track Carredura, maybe we could find the objects she dealt in. But almost as soon as I said it, I realized that if Riviere had had such a sancta, she would have used it already.
Riviere stared at the ground and shook her head. “Between us, the police force and I have tried to set traps for her a number of times, but nothing has ever worked. We’ve even tried pretending to be people in need to lure her out, but she only ever appears to those who are truly distraught. She’s very perceptive about when someone is trying to trick her.”
In other words, we were never going to catch Carredura by canvassing the town. We weren’t even going to find her.
“She’s like a natural disaster,” Elaina said. And not even human! She shrugged. “Sounds to me like we’ll never catch her unless we spot her in the process of actively meeting with one of her victims.”
But even that was going to be nearly impossible. The more we thought about it, the more hopeless the situation looked. We sat there, oppressed by our own inability to help anyone.
I couldn’t hold back a sigh. “This is why you never told us the truth about Antiques Carredura, isn’t it? So we wouldn’t get like this.”
I had heard that name so many times since I’d started working with Riviere. I’d asked about Carredura once in a while, but Riviere had always given evasive answers. Now I realized that had been to spare me and Elaina the frustration of knowing there was nothing we could do.
Or so I thought, but Riviere shook her head. “That’s not quite true.” She set down her teacup and looked at me—she was even smiling a little. I guess she was trying to take the edge off my dramatic depression.
“Then why not?” I asked, befuddled.
“I told you because this time, I think we can catch her.”
That’s all. She made it sound so simple.
Then she reached toward the sancta. The butterfly hung there, pinned in place, its wings drifting slowly up and down. It didn’t even know it was dead.