Last evening, at the antique sundries shop. Muzna stopped the three as they were about to leave and said this.
“Madame Lambert? You mean the owner of the Pintada Auction.”
“You know her?”
“She owns Morocco’s largest auction house. I’ll explain the details in a bit. Ma’am, are you saying items related to curse-lifting will appear there?”
“No. That’s not it. Most of the things ‘those people’ consign are items that end up killing their owners or making them lose something. They’re curses healers or magicians have trouble dealing with. Haeju (curse-lifting) would be difficult.”
“Damn…”
“But Madame Lambert might be different. She’s a Dollmaker (人形師).”
A Dollmaker?
It was a fairly unfamiliar title.
For a moment Jio’s brow pinched as Crowley—who used to wear that mistletoe—flitted across his mind, but as he listened on, he realized the genre was different from that great witch.
“She’s not a healer, exactly—more like a specialized healer. A Dollmaker can ‘mend.’ Anything that originally belonged to you. I heard she even fixed someone cursed to have their lifespan shaved away. If so…”
“Then a shadow should be well within her wheelhouse. It’s originally mine.”
Jeong Gilgaon nodded.
Quick to judge, he had stopped using his ability the moment he sensed something was off, but it did no good.
By then the curse had already recognized Jeong Gilgaon as the owner.
Even without meeting the spirit-beast, as the corrosion advanced, his shadow was slowly being eaten.
In the end, the “Shadow Branch” feeds on shadows. What must be repaired is the shadow itself.
Jio looked toward Hwanghon.
“Think it’s doable?”
Hwanghon’s side also used shadows as a medium.
As a specialist contract sorcerer, his ability was to open doors to other worlds through his own shadow.
Hwanghon scratched his chin.
“From the sound of it, we’re talking about…