Warmth Beneath the Dusky Skies

03, Astral Gleam

Once their preparations were done, the group got into Liza's car and headed straight to the bayside boulevard where they saw Richelle peddling her foodstuffs. They then split into pairs upon their arrival and got to work.

Marice and Katherine searched along the baywalk while Mariella and Liza checked the service road on the other side of the boulevard.

It was more than likely that the girl had already fled the area even before they left, but they could use all the clues they could get. Simply relying on surveillance cameras against a wraith's illusion magics would do them no good, so the scrying doll that Marice had made on the way there should make things a little bit easier for them.

After a full hour of following Richelle's trail further south, they decided to return back to the car to formulate their next plan.

"Any luck with your drones, Kath?" Liza asked.

Katherine had her eyes on the wide holographic screen in front of her, which displayed two video feeds from her drones. "Still nothing."

Marice crossed her arms. "So all we got so far is a single strand of her hair and some eyewitness accounts. Better than nothing I suppose."

"You know," Liza began, "I've been wondering. Richelle's wearing a cap, face mask, and privacy visor-more than enough to mask her defining features from public surveillance cameras." She clenched her hand under her chin. "Why go to all that trouble if the wraith can just spoof her presence anytime?"

Adjusting her striped cap, she watched the crowd grow bit by bit around Katherine. "Probably because the wraith wasn't anywhere close to Richelle when we did the scrying. She wouldn't have bothered masking her actual location if they were together, right?"

"Yeah, I see what you mean. But if she can remotely cast spells like what she did to us earlier, it wouldn't matter if she was with Richelle or not."

"I highly doubt she can give her a convincing disguise from a distance. She may be a wraith, but spells still have to obey certain conditions and prerequisites."

"What does she need to pull it off then?"

"Her own incorporeal body. The next best thing she could use is Richelle's shadow, but you can't exactly get away walking around without a shadow in broad daylight."

She brought out a pocket mirror and flipped it open. "So we just gotta hope they don't meet up during our search, huh? And we still have to worry about whoever saved Richelle last night too."

Marice smiled as the children in the crowd started inspecting Katherine and her floating shield up close. "By the way, how long do we have to wait until the local government gives us access to the cameras?"

"Ah, yeah. They just got the authorization a few minutes ago."

"Huh. That was fast."

With her eyes fixed at her own reflection, Liza leaned closer to Marice. "Uncle pulled some strings," she said in a hushed tone, fixing a few locks of hair. "He sounded so shocked when he found out about the wraith too."

"Obviously."

"We just need to wait a little more until my friends finish analyzing all the footage." She flipped her mirror back with a click. "So, um, how about we have lunch while we wait? I'm absolutely starving!"

"Me too!" Mariella chimed in from behind them. "I only had coffee and pandesal this morning!"

Marice turned around, looking at the doll her mother was working on. "You didn't eat some of the leftovers from last night?"

"I woke up pretty late, so I thought I should just wait and eat brunch with everybody."

"Then shall we head back for now?" Liza asked.