“Aurore is gone?” Ciel suddenly grew alert, the pain on his forehead already receding.
Leo nodded, “Yes, I woke up and found no one else here but you. Our parents are likely still at the festival, but Aurore…”
Remembering what he had just dreamt about, Ciel’s heart raced as he asked weakly, “Do you have any idea why?” Leo shook his head, “No, I asked the housekeepers, none of them saw her leave either. It’s like she vanished. Of course, she does have Insight. It shouldn’t be too hard to avoid the eyes of normal people, but what reason would she have to sneak out?”
Struggling to remain calm for Leo’s sake, Ciel had a sudden realization: I just remembered my dream… This is the first time I have ever remembered the contents of the dream after waking up.
Quickly, he scanned through his memories.
To his utter dismay, he consciously felt these dream memories fragmenting and receding, like a mirror breaking into a thousand pieces, no longer able to reflect the same image.
He quickly blurted out, “Leo, do you have a pen and paper on you?”
Momentarily at a loss for words Leo responded slowly, “What? No, why would I have—”
“I remembered my dream.”
Leo looked like he wanted to ask more, but hesitated slightly.
He looked at him with concern, glancing around the room hurriedly.
Ciel knew he didn’t have much time, so he scrambled to extract his memories physically.
Writing wasn’t an option, forcing Ciel to confide in his brother.
He didn’t like it.
This would only worry him more, but it had to be done.
He gathered his breath, trying to speak as cohesively as possible.
“Just listen to what I’m going to say. Remember it and repeat it to me.” Before Leo could react Ciel relayed as much info as he could summarize his dream, delving deep into anything that seemed important, before it completely disappeared from his mind.
In his haste, he didn’t attempt to order the events, simply trying to put them all out there.
Even still, he hesitated to mention Aurore.
If he did, he would undoubtedly scare his younger brother with this turn of events, but if he didn’t… he would forget it.
Leo’s face slowly twisted, at first in confusion, before eventually becoming filled with pain.
He bared his teeth as he covered his head with his hands.
Witnessing this, Ciel abruptly stopped talking.
Unbeknownst to him, his last remaining memories of the dream slipped away into oblivion.
“What happened?” he asked in concern.
He had just woken up, and now he saw his brother in pain next to him.
Leo’s pain slowly subsided.
His face eased up, and he looked at Ciel with unbridled horror.
“You started to speak strangely, and my head began to throb more and more as you went on.”
Perplexed Ciel asked, “Really? What did I say?”
Now it was Leo’s turn to be confused, “But you had just said…” Suddenly realizing, he cleared his throat.
“Before you spoke in that strange tongue, you mentioned that you had remembered your dream.”
Ciel’s eyes widened.
He had remembered and forgotten his dream so quickly?
Was this always the case when he woke up?
He quickly dismissed the idea.
He had been woken up many times by different people and had never had something like this happen.
Seeing Ciel grow quiet, Leo had another realization.
“Aurore!
We need to find Aurore, remember?” Ciel shook away his thoughts and nodded, “Aurore?
Leo’s urgency usurped his confusion as he hastily filled him again.
“She’s gone! We were supposed to go the interrogation with her this morning and she just vanished.”
Ciel’s eyes widened again.
Aurore’s gone?
His heart began to beat loudly, his panic growing intensely.
Why so suddenly?
And just when I had memories of the dream…
Ciel wanted to ask more, but this took precedence.
“Okay, let’s continue this while we search.”
He felt a boiling sense of unease which he couldn’t explain as he quickly left the house with Leo.
Leaving the estate, Ciel asked, “So what did I say before I spoke in another tongue?”
Leo deliberated for a moment, “It seemed to me like you were trying to remember your dream, at first by writing it down, and then by just relaying it to me. I think you were describing your dream in that tongue. That foreign tongue you spoke… just hearing it hurt.”
Ciel mulled over his words, his worries slowly growing as he sensed where this was going.
“This dream is much more serious than I thought. Should we tell our parents or Aurore about this?” Leo asked anxiously.
No!
Ciel almost instinctively shouted before holding himself back.
He reigned in his emotions, keeping a calm exterior.
On the inside he was panicking.
He sounded like a lunatic!
This event was a clear indicator of an unstable person, which could easily bar his entry into the Academy, only a week away.
Lunatics don’t get into the Academy!
Ciel could not afford to be a lunatic.
The amount of shame he would bring the prestigious Drake family, that had graciously taken him in and raised him like their own.
He could not bear to disappoint them, and so he chose to hide it.
He wanted to hide his dream, in hopes that it really wasn’t a big deal and that he could enter the academy normally.
Now it seemed that it really wasn’t normal.
Ciel could reluctantly accept that.
What he couldn’t accept was somehow losing access to the academy, and never gaining Insight.
If carrying around this anomaly and hiding it from the outside world would allow him to enter the academy normally, then he was willing to pay whatever price he had to later on.
With this in mind, Ciel spoke in a reassuring manner, “If speaking about the contents of the dream is already dangerous, then it’s safer to assume speaking about it at all is also dangerous. Spreading it to other people may also cause inexplicable pain or danger, right? In that case, it’s better to keep it hidden between the two of us. I think that once I enter the academy, I should be able to find some mystical cure for this.” He tried to make these words as convincing as possible, praying that his brother wouldn’t report him.
Leo still seemed worried, but he was willing to accept Ciel’s logic.
If anything could solve Ciel’s problems, it would be the academy.
Relieved, Ciel returned to their current problem.
By now, they were at the nearest street corner, overlooking a valley where the entire city seemed to dip into the ground.
From this high ground, they could see towering walls to the South.
Ciel identified specific areas where they would search and relayed them to his brother.
“We should split up and search.
I’ll search near the cathedral and academy, and you check Fenice Plaza.” Ciel paused for a moment before deciding, “Actually, let’s switch.
You go to the Cathedral.” Leo frowned.
“Is there a difference between the two?”
Even if the investigation found nothing wrong with the area around the plaza, there was still an unknown variable that only Ciel had sensed.
Because of this, he believed he would be more likely to react towards any trouble that may arise there.
In contrast, the area near the cathedral was the safest and most heavily guarded area in all of Leichren.
Without elaborating further, Ciel marched with purpose towards the Fenice Plaza, looking down each street he could.
He walked on the same path they had taken last night.
The morning sun now provided much more illumination than those measly oil lamps.
Ciel stopped suddenly.
He had once again returned to the same intersection as last night.
Now he could tell it was the corner of Chemin de Petales and Rue du Roi.
Looking closely, he found nothing out of the ordinary, just a quiet street with few people walking in both directions, leaving for work in the morning.
Carriages were unable to enter this intersection and it saw minimal foot traffic, mostly surrounded by residential buildings.
I still need to go in for questioning today too.
Although it seems like the case is over and done with here.
Reaching the plaza, still covered in a variety of black decorations.
Inwardly sighing, Ciel entered the town center.
It was very different from how it looked last night, lacking the huge crowds of people.
Some were still present, especially around the market stalls and the stage, looking to be cleaning or preparing for the next night.
However there was still no sign of Aurore.
Determined, Ciel continued searching past the plaza, entering another side street on the opposite side.
With no further leads, Ciel chose to search the areas directly around the square, before returning to meet up with Leo.
Before long, he entered Rue de Laurier.
It was a sprawling street, wide enough for three carriages to travel in parallel with different shops selling everything from leather shoes to books to charms.
It was still early morning, so most shops remained closed, with few people passing through.
As Ciel progressed through the wide avenue, his anxiety began to rise.
Quickening his pace, he tried to come up with other places to search around this area.
Before long, he surmised a new list of locations.
He decided to do one more glance around before switching streets.
To his surprise, the street around him was now devoid of people around him.
Strange, there were plenty of people a minute ago.
Turning back around, he saw one lone man walking on the opposite side of the road.
Unperturbed, Ciel turned right on the next street, back towards the city center.
This new street also had only one woman, walking towards him on the opposite side.
Ciel stopped to turn to a shop window, and inconspicuously glanced at the street behind him.
His unease grew as he noticed another person walking towards him.
This time, he was much closer.
Three people, on different streets, all heading towards me.
The only ones in sight.
It was a clever idea really, but the absence of anyone else only heightened Ciel’s wariness.
Ciel sighed inwardly, his suspicions had been all but confirmed.