"Communication Peas?" Headmaster Fontana frowned. "You're sure you didn't see wrong?"
"Of course I didn't see wrong!" the little girl said loudly in indignation. "My eyesight's just fine!"
Fontana was silent for a moment. When he lifted his eyes again, there was still an unmistakable protectiveness in his expression:
"Maybe Stern has some unknown secrets. As a professor, it's not my place to pry too deeply, and I might not know everything. But that absolutely does not mean I can tolerate anyone 'looking after' my students in this way!"
"You're not Aurors, and you're not from the Magic Congress Security Department, are you? You might not even be Wizards from the United States… so what exactly are you? What are you trying to do keeping an eye on Stern?"
Just like Wizards in the United Kingdom are basically all graduates of Hogwarts, most Wizards in the United States enter Iphamoni at eleven to study.
As the headmaster of Iphamoni, even if Fontana didn't remember every student's name, he would always have some impression of their faces.
So he recognized at a glance that these two were not students from his school.
Vid and Antoine exchanged a look. Then Antoine shrugged and wiped a hand down his own face.
When he raised his head again, he had already returned to his original appearance. Smiling, he said, "Hello, Mr. Fontana."
Fontana was stunned.
"You're…" he asked hesitantly, "from Salem… Professor Antoine Moro?"
They had met at Hogwarts, though they hadn't talked much.
Salem Academy had originally been founded during the witch hunts by persecuted Witches as an association to shelter others, and later developed into a school. At first they only admitted girls; it was only in the last decade or so that they began to take male students.
Most Wizards in the United States graduated from Iphamoni; the small remainder naturally came out of Salem.
Seeing Antoine, Fontana finally eased out of his high-strung stance, but fell into deeper confusion instead, and asked:
"So… what on earth is going on? Can someone explain it to me?"
Antoine tilted his head slightly and asked softly, "Mr. Fontana, when it comes to Rolando Stern, do you really know him? Do you know what he's doing now?"
"Seems you've got hold of some things I don't know." Fontana pulled out a chair and sat down directly, saying solemnly, "Please spell it out in detail, and let's see if you can convince me not to obstruct your actions!"
Antoine sighed and asked, "Then let me ask first—about the Scourers… and Prometheus, how much do you know?"
...
While the two of them were talking, Vid looked for all the world like an ordinary, dull attendant, just quietly watching the scene outside the window without saying a word.
All of a sudden came the sound of a chair being pulled—Fontana's daughter had sat down in the empty seat next to Vid, swinging her legs. She beckoned to Vid with her small hand, signaling him to lean closer.
Vid bent down, leaned in, and asked, "What is it, little miss?"
The little girl spoke with a child's kind of certainty: "That ice cream man just now is a bad guy, isn't he?"
Vid paused, and asked, "How do you know?"
The little girl shot her father a look of hate-iron-for-not-becoming-steel, sighed like an adult, and said in exasperation:
"I could tell at a glance! My dad's such a dummy, he's always getting fooled! That man's smile was so fake, and his eyes were really scary, and he didn't even notice."
Vid laughed. "You've got a sharp eye. He really isn't as simple as he looks on the surface."
Having her judgment confirmed, the little girl immediately brightened.
Her little heart couldn't hold too many worries; joy quickly washed away the unpleasantness Stern had just brought her.
The girl took out a rabbit Poppet small enough to fit in one hand from her backpack, and used the unused utensils on the table as her imagined forest, playing with great seriousness.
"Cheep-cheep, charge—"
The rabbit Poppet dove headfirst into a teacup.
"Cheep-cheep, picked a carrot… that's tonight's dinner…"
The rabbit Poppet bit the handle of the teaspoon and shook it vigorously.
This kind of Poppet they sold to kids was the dumbest sort, about the same as a real rabbit; the only difference was that it knew who its master was and didn't need the master to take care of it.
Seeing Vid's gaze fall on her pet, the little girl introduced it enthusiastically: "This is my best friend, Panpan. Whenever I'm sad, it's always there with me."
After she said that, she pursed her lips again, lowered her head a little sadly:
"But it's not as smart as Maria's Mint… Daddy won't buy me a better Poppet Pet."
"Why?" Vid asked softly in puzzlement.
Headmaster Fontana looked like he doted on this daughter very much, and he didn't seem like a man stingy with money.
"Because Daddy says…"
The little girl drooped her head and muttered, "The smarter a Poppet Pet is, the less you can trust it. Because if you can't see its brain, that means its brain might be under someone else's control."
Vid froze for a moment and couldn't help lifting his head to look at Fontana sitting diagonally across.
Fontana was feeling angry and anxious at the truths he'd just heard, but seeing the black-haired young man patiently keeping his daughter company so she wouldn't have to hear such brutal realities, he still managed to force a gentle smile.
From that smile, you'd never guess he could say something so cold and filled with suspicion.
Or perhaps… that idea had been passed on to him by someone else?
Vid smiled faintly and lowered his eyes.
...
Stern had no idea how many eyes in the café were watching him.
But he didn't stay too long in any one place. After quietly gathering the surrounding people's opinions of the Stonefield Family, and seeing that no one was going in or out of the mansion, Stern drove the ice cream truck off again, its chimes ringing as he headed to the next spot.
The Stonefield Family was a vast old house that had lasted for generations, with over a hundred family members and business in all kinds of fields; naturally they didn't have just one residence.
Stern was very patient.
The Magic Congress had been very active lately; even if the Scourers wanted to cooperate with Prometheus, they had to lie low for the moment. He had plenty of time to investigate.
With the clinking little children's song playing, the ice cream truck pulled up under a building in the commercial district, and kids and passersby on the street gradually gathered around the small van.
In a small shop not far away, the reporter Tom Hake tossed a pack of cigarettes onto the wooden table.
The shop owner glanced at it and said, "Two US Dollars."
Tom Hake pulled out two crumpled bills and handed them over, with a photograph pinched between his fingers.
In the photo, Alderich Kubit was lifting his chin slightly toward the camera, his expression arrogant.
"Buddy, you seen this guy around?" Tom Hake asked.