The freezing wind bit at Layton's nose and cheeks as he and Phoenix ran, hunched over, across the small square towards the bridge. He pressed his scarf over his face and breathed into it, washing warmth over his cheeks, and pressed his hands into his pockets to protect his gloveless fingers from the cold. Only a few seconds outside and he was already regretting this decision.
Not only that, but the prickling on the back of his neck was becoming unbearable.
When they reached the bridge, Phoenix crouched behind one of the lampposts that stood at its corner and motioned for the Professor to stay behind him as he looked down its length to the mainland village.
Phoenix sighed a billowing cloud of steam into the air.
"Crap-" he whispered.
"Language, Phoenix," Layton interjected before he could get any further.
His warning earned him a glare of annoyance before Phoenix looked back down the bridge.
"...crud," he muttered instead. "I know this bridge is the most direct route to the village, if not the only route, but does it really have to be so exposed?"
Layton hunched his shoulders and wished he had brought a pair of earmuffs with him. He looked back towards the cottage he was renting and cringed at the sight of two clear, sharp, distinct sets of footprints leading from there to where he and Phoenix now stood.
Unless it snowed again soon, it would become abundantly clear to anybody willing to look for them that someone had come and gone from the cottage during the night. Unless they assumed it was Phoenix and Luke, questions were bound to be raised.
He followed Phoenix's gaze down the bridge. Even more exposed than this square.
But by this point, they didn't have any choice in the matter.
"I understand how you feel," he said, "but if we just stay calm and keep our heads down, we should make it to the cave entrance without incident."
"Ugh," he heard Phoenix sigh. "You'd better be right about this."
He stayed low, crouched beside the railing that ran along the side of the bridge, and Layton followed his lead as he ran across, pausing and looking back every now and again to make sure either the Professor was still there or they weren't being followed.
The snow was about three inches deep. Perhaps more. Deep enough that it came right up to their ankles, at least. Deep enough for their weight not to reach all the way down to the bridge's wooden surface, preventing them from slipping or squeaking that would alert any listeners to their presence.
Nevertheless, every crunching footstep was like a punch to Layton's stomach. He felt like any moment, somebody could leap out of the shadows and apprehend them both.
And this prickle on the back of his neck just was not going away.
Okay. They'd made it across. Phoenix grabbed the Professor by the shoulder and Layton allowed himself to be pulled into the thankfully empty shadows by the side of the library.
"Right," Phoenix hissed. "We're on the mainland. Where do we go from here?"
Layton raised his hand to the back of his neck and rubbed the hairs that were standing on end.
He hadn't seen anybody else outside since they had departed, so if they were being watched, it must be by somebody they didn't have any hope of seeing.
As far as he could tell, much as he disliked it, there was one very clear explanation for that sensation.
"First things first," he said to Phoenix, "what's our spirit situation?"
Phoenix moved past him, pressed against the library wall, and peered around the corner. His expression didn't change at all, but Layton could see his fingers quivering.
"There're way more over here than near your cottage," he reported. "They aren't very tightly packed, but if I tell you to stop, slow down or move to one side, it'd probably be a good idea to do that."
"Understood," Layton replied. "I wouldn't want to walk headlong into a ghost. Can you tell what they're doing?"
Before Phoenix could even open his mouth, a loud bang made both of them jump, and Phoenix leaned back from the corner as something nearby started rattling.
"It looks like they're trying to get into the buildings," he explained. "One of them just winced after touching the window frame. I think it's iron, but I can't be sure."
"I have heard that iron is a repellent of the supernatural," the Professor considered, "although the concept of a person who is already dead being hurt by anything is rather strange."
"I'll keep you posted on where they are in relation to us," said Phoenix, and he leaned away from the corner. "So how do we get to this puzzle you found?"
Layton moved to where Phoenix had stood and looked around the corner, ignoring the rattling windows near where his head now was.
He could see the bell tower not far away. Beyond that, cold white light from the police station spilled out into the snow, and he could just about see it shining on the still surface of the Sacred Well.
The fact that the lights were still on likely meant the officers were still active.
The Professor ran a finger over his chin with a pensive hum.
"Don't tell me you don't know!" Phoenix whispered hoarsely.
"I do," Layton said. "I'm simply weighing our options. The exit that I used to emerge from the cave is up the steps, near the post office-"
"Wait, what?" Phoenix interrupted. "How did you get back to the cottage unnoticed?"
Layton suddenly remembered the arduous process he'd had to go through. Stepping in premade footprints, hugging the buildings and the bridge's railing, ducking behind trees and bushes whenever somebody drew near...
"...carefully," he said simply. "As I was saying, the exit I used is up there-" He pointed around the corner in the direction he knew the steps led. "-but as I was fleeing, I noticed a second way in and out, about which I have good news and bad news."
Phoenix sighed and leaned against the library wall.
"Fine, lay it on me," he murmured.
The Professor leaned away from the corner. Thank goodness these shadows were so dark. So long as he hid his coat's buttons, he'd be all but invisible.
"The good news is that there appeared to be a far more direct route to the puzzle that I found," he explained. "The bad news is..."
He looked back again, checking that nobody had gone outside.
"...if I was correct about the topography," he continued, "that entry-way is beside the police station."
Phoenix inhaled through his nose in that special way people tend to do when they're trying their hardest not to panic.
"That is bad news," he muttered.
"Never fear, Phoenix," said Layton. "If we move quickly enough, we should be able to hurry past without being noticed. Do you have your gloves on? I wouldn't want to leave fingerprints."
Phoenix held up his hand and flexed his fingers for the Professor to see.
"Yeah," he said. "Do you?"
Layton held up his own hand and wiggled his bare fingers.
"Unfortunately not," he stated. "Not since the police confiscated them as evidence."
He plunged that hand back into his pocket before the cold had a chance to bite at his skin.
"I hadn't packed a spare pair," he told Phoenix, "because of all the things I anticipated, the need for a second pair of gloves wasn't one of them."
"Are you serious?" whispered Phoenix. "Your hands must be freezing!"
"I'm English, Phoenix," Layton stated. "I'm quite used to cold weather by now."
He took a quick look past the bell tower again. Thank goodness the region was still devoid of life.
"Besides," he added, "once we enter the cave, I can use the heat from my lantern to keep my fingers warm. At the very least, warm enough to ward off frostbite."
"Warm enough to keep you from ending up like Edgeworth?" Phoenix suggested.
Layton replied with a grim nod.
It had been a while since they had arrived. In that time, not a single living soul had set foot in their field of view. Those factors considered, they now had a high likelihood of reaching the cave entrance he had told Phoenix about without encountering resistance.
He kept one hand on his hat to hold it in place as he ran, still so hunched that he was almost bent double, and he kept his ears as open as possible as they approached the police station. It would be just their luck for someone to approach down the stairs and see him for long enough to recognise him.
Perhaps, if they did, he could convince them that he was already dead and had returned as a ghost-
Something grabbed his coat.
While he was ducking under one of the police station's windows, he felt a force tugging on his coat's tail, and he whipped around to see what it was.
Thank goodness it was just Phoenix, but Layton's relief was short-lived. Phoenix's eyes were wide, jaw set and mouth drawn as though holding back a scream, and he was staring straight past the Professor at something somewhere in front of them.
Still looking back, a cold wind brushed against Layton's cheek.
Something was right in front of him.
He stayed rooted to the spot. He didn't dare move. Didn't dare turn back. Didn't even dare breathe in case... he had no specific idea what would happen if a ghost (if that was really what it was) was disturbed, but he truly did not want to find out.
He held his breath. Kept his eyes on Phoenix's face. There was nothing he could do but trust him and wait for him to give the all clear, to tell him it was safe to proceed without risking walking through... whatever Phoenix was preventing him from walking through.
Phoenix's gaze tracked sideways, following something that Layton couldn't see.
Above them, the window rattled in its frame.
At long last, Phoenix looked back at Layton and nodded.
All clear.
Layton finally exhaled. He waited for his coat to be released before putting his head down again and running as fast as he could to the cave entrance. A barred door was set into the rock, hanging on heavy but well-oiled hinges, but wrapped in a thick chain secured by a padlock and hooks driven into the stone wall.
Having finished running, he and Phoenix straightened up.
"Oh dear," Layton sighed. "That would appear to be a rather sturdy padlock."
Phoenix lifted the padlock with one of his fingers.
It fell open at his touch.
"...it's not locked," he said flatly.
The Professor dug his hands into his pockets. He felt as though Luke's awkward behaviour suddenly made a great deal more sense.
"Much as I would like to credit our luck," he said, "it appears we must instead credit some other person's lack thereof."
"Whatever." Phoenix unhooked the lock and hung it around the bars. "I'm already freezing. Let's just get in there already."
He yanked the door open and held it for Layton to enter, and Layton muttered a quick thanks as they stepped inside. He waited until Phoenix had closed the door and repositioned the chain before digging his lantern out and flicking it on.
"Ugh..." Phoenix groaned as he stepped up beside Layton. "I think it's even colder in here. It's like Ms Skellig's house all over again."
The Professor didn't reply.
He angled his lantern upwards, guiding the light down the length of the cave. The walls around them were a stark greenish grey, veined with black, and short, thick stalactites hung from the ceiling while shorter, thicker stalagmites sat around the edges of the floor.
Just like Phoenix had said, it did feel colder in here, but a different kind of cold to the empty, biting chill of outside. This was a cloying cold that clung to his skin and seeped under his scarf and up his sleeves.
This region looked familiar.
Yes, this was the place he had seen yesterday. Thank goodness they hadn't had to go searching for it.
"This way, Phoenix," he said softly.
The walls were too damp to echo. Thank goodness.
"I believe it may be a similar principle to a refrigerator," Layton explained as he led Phoenix into the humid cold. "The stone around us is both absorbing and subsequently emitting the cold, although I will confess that thermodynamics was never my theory of study. I wouldn't be surprised if the villagers used these tunnels as cold storage if they ran out of space in their own personal fridges."
He looked up at Phoenix in hope of a response, but his friend seemed distracted by the cave walls that surrounded them.
"They said this used to be a coal-mining town, didn't they?" He leaned towards one wall for a closer look. "Is that what these black veins are?"
Layton turned his lantern to the wall. Those black veins stood out starkly against the khaki walls. To the untrained eye, they would almost seem painted onto the rock.
"Yes, it wouldn't surprise me," he commented.
He ran his fingertips along one of the veins, and when he took his fingers away, they were coated in a thick layer of fine black dust.
It seemed about the right consistency for coal. No doubt the mines had been shut down for some spiritual reason or another.
Phoenix was still looking around. Still worried about the possibility of a haunting, it seemed.
Layton looked back down at his black fingertips.
Then at Phoenix again.
"Oh, ah, pardon me," he said.
"What?" asked Phoenix. "What is it?"
"One moment, you have a stray snowflake clinging to your face." Layton reached up and smeared the black dust on Phoenix's cheek. "There we go."
He fought to keep a straight face as Phoenix touched his cheek and frowned at his glove.
"Layton, did you just smear coal dust on my face?" he asked.
"For good reason, my friend," said Layton, wishing he had a handkerchief to wipe the remains of the dust off his hand. "With how easily it spreads, it's clear to me now that this is the genuine article. You were correct in your assumption that these veins are coal."
He shined his lantern around the cave, tracking the veins down the tunnel.
"And you're sure that wasn't just an excuse to smudge coal dust on my face?" Phoenix demanded.
"Be careful with how you breathe." It had suddenly become very difficult to avoid smiling. "I don't think your daughter would forgive me if I let you go home with black lung."
"What are you, twelve?" asked Phoenix.
At the sound of his exasperation, Layton allowed himself a little chuckle.
"Phoenix, you would be surprised what we archaeologists must do for our jobs," he told his friend. "I'm sure you've heard of instances of explorers coming across animals preserved in ice?"
"Yeah," said Phoenix. "Why?"
"Do you know what the best method is for determining if those animals have been fully preserved or not?" asked Layton.
Phoenix's face fell. He suddenly looked very, very uncomfortable.
"...no," he said, "but I have a feeling you're going to tell me and I'm not going to like it very much."
"You eat it."
There it was. The moment for the ex-lawyer to stare at the Professor in abject horror and no effort whatsoever to hide his disgust.
"What?!" he spluttered.
"Take a bite, chew it up and spit it out," Layton explained. "Then, in my case at least, follow with mouthwash and a round of antivirals, antimicrobials and antibiotics."
It was moments like these that made his job not only worth doing, but worth explaining. The sheer abhorrence in Phoenix's wide eyes and slack jaw was truly a sight to behold.
Layton couldn't avoid reaching up and gently pressing his jaw shut with his finger before Phoenix had a chance to shake him away.
"...and here I thought it was all just digging up ruins and piecing together vases," he said numbly.
"A great deal of scientific research tends to be far more interesting than many people give it credit for," the Professor told him happily, "but for now..."
He turned his lantern's beam to the wall that loomed in front of them.
"...our scientific minds should focus themselves on this puzzle."
"Whoa," he heard Phoenix mutter.
It was more or less that reaction he had expected to the bizarre arrangement that was set into the rock.
The stone wall in front of them had been carved down and flattened to make space for a large carving, perhaps around seven feet in diameter, of a series of three concentric circles. The cracks that formed their edges were thin, yet deep, and gave the impression of there being something on the other side just waiting to be revealed.
The circles themselves were dappled with carved out spots, alternating between roughly half a centimetre and an inch wide, and Layton took a step closer to run his hand over the surface and feel how shallow and smoothly they had been cut.
"At a glance, these indentations would appear to be nothing more than ordinary erosion," he told Phoenix, "but if you look closer, you'll see that these have been deliberately carved. If I didn't know any better, I would have guessed that the larger ones were bullet holes."
"And these cracks..." Phoenix ran his finger over the edge of the largest circle. "These are discs, right?" He took a step back to take in the entire design. "This thing looks like some kind of giant stone target."
Layton stepped back too. His lantern's beam expanded to encompass the entire design.
"They aren't just cracks," he pointed out. "If my hunch is correct, these discs are intended to be rotated so that the indentations form a specific pattern. Once that is accomplished, our puzzle is solved."
"What happens then?" asked Phoenix.
The Professor stepped back towards the rock face. It seemed like the same granite that had made up the passage to the Pictish Shrine – no doubt the same granite that the whole mountain range was composed of – and it was dry, but cold to the touch.
"I haven't the faintest idea," he replied.
He heard Phoenix step closer, moving into the corner of his vision, and he saw him trying to look into the cracks between the circles, nose almost flat against the rock.
"This thing could trigger a cave-in, Layton," he said, and looked around the cave they were in with eyes wild and afraid. "It could set off spike traps or flamethrowers or send a massive boulder rolling down the slope at us!"
Layton rolled his eyes.
"Phoenix," he said, "I think you've watched a few too many adventure films."
"And some ancient puzzle in a mountain cave doesn't seem like something out of a movie to you?" Phoenix snapped.
Before he had a chance to panic any more, Layton grabbed his hand and pressed his fingers against one of the larger indentations.
"Can you feel how these indentations are carved?" He released Phoenix's hand and traced his thumb over one of the smaller dents. "The edges of these circles are quite sharp. Given the size of them, I highly doubt they're ancient and have been maintained over the years, so if you were to consider every possibility, as well as the rate of erosion of stone in these conditions..."
Phoenix lowered his hand.
"This puzzle is relatively recent," he realised.
"Precisely," said Layton. "With what we've learned about Fatargan's dear mayor, it wouldn't surprise me if she turned out to be the one responsible for this set-up."
"So no ancient arrow traps?" Phoenix asked hopefully.
It was difficult not to laugh at how unnecessarily terrified he was, the Professor considered, but it was while he was looking up at his companion that he noticed something else carved into the granite.
"It would appear not," he said, "unless those arrows were of a very bizarre shape."
He angled his lantern upwards.
"Huh? What makes you say..."
Phoenix trailed off when he noticed what Layton was talking about.
"...oh."
The lettering carved into the rock was just as clear and sharp as myriad dents that had been punched in below it, but the lettering was far from contemporary in appearance. Nothing but sharp lines. No curves whatsoever. It looked rather like something from a fantasy novel.
Because, Layton thought with amusement, it technically was something from a fantasy novel.
"...is that..." Phoenix pressed himself up on tiptoe to get a closer look. "Are those runes?"
He shielded his eyes from the lantern right beside him.
"Don't tell me this thing opens a door that leads us to some underground society of dwarves," he groaned.
"While that would be rather amusing, it isn't the case," said the Professor. "Would I be correct in assuming you recognise these markings from some work of fiction?"
"Yeah," said Phoenix. "I'm pretty sure I saw it in something from Lord of the Rings one time. At least, I think it was Lord of the Rings. Might've been Narnia."
Of course. What else could it possibly have been?
"What if I were to tell you that J.R.R. Tolkien appropriated Nordic runes for use in his trilogies?" said Layton.
Still shielding his eyes, Phoenix stared at the Professor in fresh confusion.
"Nordic?" He looked from Layton's face to the runes and back again. "Like... Thor? Vikings? I thought we worked out this was recent! Unless..." He ran his finger over his stubble as he looked back up at the carvings. "...unless someone's trying to throw us off the scent."
Layton couldn't help but smile again.
"Whatever job you're working currently, Phoenix," he said, "is a waste of your talents."
He saw Phoenix smile as well, although there seemed to be a noticeable sense of sadness as he did so. The Professor, rather than letting him mull on his depression again, stepped closer to the wall and stood on tiptoe to get a closer look.
"Let me see..." he muttered.
From behind him came an audible tut.
"Of course you can read runes," Phoenix sighed.
"Not for my work," said Layton. "I do have interests outside my career, Phoenix. My old friend Randall helped me learn to read Nordic runes so that we could draw our own map of Middle Earth on his bedroom wall. I may not have seen the films, but I am more than familiar with the original novels."
He got the feeling that Phoenix was staring right into the back of his head, and he heard another sigh of very obvious annoyance:
"...you nerd."
Layton pressed his hand to his face. Hopefully Phoenix would interpret that as thinking rather than trying to hide his laughter.
"Let me see," he muttered again.
The phrase was only six words long, all but the last were relatively short – between two and four letters – and the last was a full eight letters long. That first rune could be interpreted as a T, and the first three words all started with that letter, and the phrase also had two Us and two Rs, and that one letter around halfway through the final word could be interpreted as an A...
A T, a U, an R and an N for the first word. Turn... turn to... turn to the...
And the next one started with a P, had an O and an E at the end...
The last word started with a G and had an I and a C in it...
"...oh."
"What is it?" asked Phoenix. "Can't you read it?"
"No, I can read it just fine," Layton assured him, "but what I'm reading is, well, a little odd."
He pointed at the inscription and tracked across the writing so that Phoenix could read it and follow along:
"Turn to the pole for guidance."
Unsurprisingly, Phoenix just blinked at the writing in bafflement.
"Pole?" He was apparently so shocked that his voice squeaked. "What pole?"
No doubt he was following exactly the same route that Layton's mind was taking right now; casting his mind back over every pole-like object they had seen during the days and nights they had spent in Fatargan.
"If we continue in our assumption that this puzzle is a somewhat new creation," the Professor said, "then it could be a reference to a pole somewhere in this village. Perhaps a lamppost or a supporting pillar."
"Pole... pole..." Phoenix pondered. "Maybe the mining lift? The one that's a bell tower now?"
Layton thought back to it. Certainly a tall, pole-like construction, and one that seemed to be held in high regard by the people who lived in these mountains...
"It's certainly supported by a number of poles," he said, "but we can't go running out into the village too rashly if this turns out to be some scavenger hunt."
"Yeah, you're right," Phoenix sighed. "I don't like the thought of running headfirst into a ghost's mouth."
That was what he was concerned about?!
"...or attracting the other villagers' attention," Layton pointed out.
"That too," said Phoenix, almost as an afterthought.
It was difficult not to stare at him. Maybe he was an expert at it in the courtroom, but his lack of prioritising was downright incredible at times.
"Pole..." Layton rubbed his chin, trying to prompt his mind to work on this latest odd puzzle. "...a pole..."
Just how many lamp posts and supports for housing overhangs were dotted around this village?
"...goodness, even if we did try, it would take far too long to examine every single pole in Fatargan," he realised. "We'd freeze to death before we even made it halfway. Not only that, but the villagers wouldn't like it if we started poking around their houses."
"What if..."
Phoenix shook his head.
"Nah, that's stupid," he grumbled.
"Phoenix," said Layton, "if you have an idea, I'd be delighted to hear it."
The taller man rubbed the back of his neck.
"Well, I was just thinking," he explained. "What if by 'pole' it meant a magnetic pole? You know, North and South?"
North and South Pole? For navigation?
Layton turned back to the puzzle before them. The concentric rings just begging him to twist them into whatever the necessary arrangement turned out to be. He focused his lantern's beam on the central circle and the little dents carved into it.
A single larger indentation had been marked out in the middle of this central disc. No, not just in the middle. It was exactly in the centre. Mathematically perfect. Not only that, but it was bigger than even the large dents.
A central point... the North Pole...
"Of course..."
Before he could give Phoenix a chance to stop him, Layton shoved the lantern into his hands, turned on his heel and ran through the darkness to the barred door. He tugged the chains away as quietly as he could and hurried out of the rock face's shelter.
The sky was clear tonight. Clearer than he had seen in days. Every single star in the Milky Way was on full, brilliant display. Even with the light from the nearby police station and the lampposts not far away, the view was so clear that he could see gas clouds glowing far, far above.
The longer he looked, the more stars winked into view. Truly a spectacular display of the night sky. A far cry from the view he'd had from his house in London.
But as he continued looking, certain stars stood out more than the rest. They glimmered so bright that he swore he could pick out different colours. Red, orange, yellow, white, blue...
This opening faced east. The sun rose in front of him and set behind. That meant that to his left, where the King's Arms and the mountain with the Pictish Shrine loomed overhead, was – roughly, at least – due north.
And right there, shining above the pub, was a star shining brighter than every other in the entirety of the night sky.
A central point for the North Pole.
"Of course!"
Layton turned again and held onto his hat as he ran back into the cave, following his lantern's light to where Phoenix was waiting, dumbfounded, for him to return.
"Layton, what is it?" he hissed. "What did you figure out?"
The Professor smiled as he took his lantern back and refocused the light on the puzzle.
"I believe, Phoenix, that you may have been entirely correct," he said happily.
"Wh- really?!" Phoenix choked.
"Look at this puzzle." Layton took a step back so that the largest circle fitted within his beam. "Look at the discs and the way the dents are carved into them. Does the arrangement remind you of anything?"
Caught in the light, Phoenix looked over the puzzle again, humming in thought. It didn't take long before he jogged over to stand next to the Professor and see these discs as a whole.
Only a few seconds later, his eyes widened with a gasp of amazement.
"Stars," he said breathlessly. "It's a carving of the sky at night."
"Exactly," Layton responded. "Now consider the hint again. 'Turn to the pole for guidance'."
"Pole... stars..."
Phoenix gasped again.
"The North Star!" he cried. "Polaris!"
The Professor moved closer and kept his light fixed on the biggest dent.
"I believe that as the largest and central indentation," he told Phoenix, "this mark is intended to represent the North Star, meaning-"
"-if we twist these rings to match up with what the night sky looks like-" Phoenix added.
"-we'll have solved the puzzle!" They both forgot about the need for quiet and almost shouted in delight.
"Excellent!" Layton said happily. "Let's get to work, shall we?"
He knew that Polaris was the end point star in the constellation Ursa Minor, and there were marks in the middle ring that would match up with that when in the right position, so he pressed his hands on the stone and pushed it to the side.
"So there aren't as many larger dents as the smaller ones," Phoenix said, stepping up to help. "I guess those must be the stars for constellations."
With both of their strength combined, he and Layton managed to heave the middle ring into position, although the sound of stone scraping against stone was so loud it bordered on cringeworthy. Thank goodness the carvings provided enough texture for them to get a good grip without a handle.
"It's at times like these that Fatargan's location reveals itself to be a blessing in disguise," Layton commented as the stone slid into place. "If we were closer to a city, even in a more standard suburban setting, the night sky would be... ngh... drowned out by light pollution."
His hands were sore by the time the middle ring was in the right position, and he motioned for Phoenix to take pause so that the two of them could catch their breath and dust off their fingers.
"Our mountainside location is perfect for stargazing," he finished. "So clear that you can see the gas clouds between the stars!"
Phoenix leaned and stretched his back.
"Do you think they'd let you build an observatory up here?" he asked.
"Maybe once I've cleared my name and reconnected with the rest of civilisation," said Layton. "One moment."
He turned and ran back out to look at the stars again. Best to check and make sure they were on the right track before they both exhausted themselves moving the largest disc.
Ursa Minor was set in the tail of Draco, which pointed towards Ursa Major, and then on the other side of Polaris there sat Cassiopeia and...
Cepheus. The King.
How very appropriate.
He ran back into the cave and caught up with Phoenix.
"I think we're on the right track," he reported. "The middle disc needs to be turned a few more degrees clockwise."
"Let me guess." Phoenix pressed his fingertips into the dents for a better grip. "It's an archaeologist's – or a gentleman's – prerogative to memorise at least one star map, right?"
"Not... necessarily..." Layton grunted as they heaved the stone into place, "but it... does make night-time navigation... a good deal more straightforward."
He blew out a breath and stepped back for another overall look.
"Ah, this outermost one needs to be twisted counter-clockwise," he decided.
"You're the boss," Phoenix commented.
The outermost ring of stone proved the most troublesome of all the concentric carvings. Layton felt his muscles screaming as he heaved against the granite with all his might, and by the sound of how Phoenix was groaning, he was struggling just as much. Maybe even more.
Stone grinding against stone really was a horrible sound. He'd be delighted to never have to hear it again as long as he lived. Or at least, never have to hear it right in his ear ever again.
Surely... surely it couldn't be much further... surely they had to be almost done by now, it was almost in place-
Click
The sound of something within the stone caused the Professor to jump back, and he pressed Phoenix away from the puzzle as well.
With an almighty scraping likely loud enough to attract the attention of the whole village, the entire arrangement of circles shifted backwards into the wall and slid down into the rocky ground until it was entirely out of sight, leaving nothing but a gaping black chasm.
"Yes!" Phoenix punched the air in triumph.
"Excellent work!" Layton patted him on the arm. "Phoenix, should you ever decide a new career is in order, I urge you not to take archaeology off the table."
"Oh, I..." Phoenix looked away in a futile effort to hide his bashful blush. "...I don't know about that."
"Perhaps you could even enrol at Gressenheller," the Professor suggested. "I'm sure I could arrange for you to receive an adventuring companion's discount."
"Hey, you already offered to pay my rent!" snapped Phoenix. "I don't know how much more I could accept!"
As if to deliberately change the subject, he turned to look into the passage they had opened together, and Layton angled his lantern so that they could see what they had to look at.
But as far as they could see, it was just more black-veined cave tunnels.
"What do you think might be down here?" asked Phoenix.
Layton ran his hand over the side of the doorway they had opened. The stone was smooth, almost polished, from the wearing it had endured.
"In all honesty, I can't possibly be sure," he responded, and he held up a hand to count on his fingers. "From my experience, there are three possibilities as to what we may find. Option 1: an underground workshop that reveals that every villager in Fatargan is secretly a robot. Option 2: a vein of hallucinogenic gas which is the source of any beliefs that these mountains are haunted. Option 3: a vast underground cavern sheltering a fake city built as a ruse to trick people into believing they've travelled through time."
Phoenix didn't respond.
Looking back to find out why, the Professor found that he was being stared at.
"...those are all really specific," Phoenix said softly. "Are you okay?"
The Professor just gave him a smile. He didn't need to know all the details, after all.
"I'm quite alright, Phoenix," he replied. "I suppose, ultimately, there's only one real way to find out."
He saw Phoenix swallow hard at the sight of what lay beyond the new entrance.
"We go in," he said grimly.
"Precisely," Layton said. "This is why I didn't want to come here alone. At least one of us should be able to return to the cottage and report what happened should anything go wrong."
"Well, the least you can do is avoid jinxing it!" Phoenix spat. "Let's just see what's in... what's down here."
Layton looked down at the floor he was illuminating. A steep slope pitted with dents, either eroded or carved for easier walking, and it looked as though the tunnel took a sharp turn around five metres down.
"Perhaps some ropes may have been in order," he thought aloud, and he took a deep breath.
The air smelled of moss and petrichor, and even though there wasn't any breeze down here, he still felt a paralysing chill creeping over his skin. He pulled his collar tight around his neck and breathed into his hand to warm himself up.
"You sure you're alright?"
He hadn't heard Phoenix approach, but now he was right by his side.
"It isn't anything I'm not used to," Layton replied, dismissing the concern with a wave.
But even with that effort, Phoenix was still glaring at him.
"Just be careful," he said. "This place looks damn risky, so watch where you put your feet."
The Professor gave him a wry smile.
"And you said I was the one who was, quote, jinxing it?" he pointed out.
He only had a glimpse of Phoenix rolling his eyes as the taller man moved past him, taking the lead as they started down the rough slope.
The dips in the rock proved just the right size and shape for Layton to slip his heels into, but he still pressed his hand against the wall. There could be any number of tiny loose stones in this place, just waiting to slip out from under his shoes and send him tumbling down into the depths of the earth, or wherever it was this passage led to.
Between the veins of coal, the wall was either damp or even colder than it had been at the mouth. Below a certain temperature, it was difficult to tell.
He tried to avoid touching the coal. The last thing he needed was to get his hands dirty again.
"Still think you'll be okay without gloves?"
In his lantern's reflected light, Layton could see Phoenix eyeing him in unhidden amusement.
"If anything, I'm even more glad I don't have them," Layton told him, still supporting himself on the wall. "The damp in this cave would have made the wool dreadfully slippery and a good deal more dangerous."
He tried to keep his light steady as the slope evened out, and around the bend, he could see three possibilities for how they could proceed.
The tunnel continued straight on, into stalactite-studded pitch blackness, but another passage branched off and curved away into the rock, and a third seemed like nothing more than a gaping hole in the floor.
"So which way now?" Phoenix shielded his eyes and peered into the darkness. "We don't have far before the tunnel forks off."
"Which way indeed..." Layton lowered his light to the ground and the wide opening it bore.
Was that... wood?
"Down," he decided.
"Down?" Phoenix stared at him in alarm. "Seriously?!"
"Yes," said Layton, and he stepped closer to shine his lantern into the darkness. "Clearly descent was intended at some point."
He squatted down so that his light was more focused on the wooden construction that sat on the stone floor, standing stable, around two metres tall.
Phoenix kneeled down beside him to get a better look.
"A stepladder?" he said.
"I believe it may simply be a ladder," Layton corrected.
"You can see the other side of it leaning against the wall right below us," Phoenix pointed out. "It's clearly a stepladder!"
"It can still be classed as a ladder, Phoenix," Layton told him. "Would you not say it could fall under such a broad umbrella?"
At that, Phoenix stared blankly at the ladder with a mutter of "...crud."
Thinking back, Layton vaguely remembered hearing Maya say something about Phoenix in relation to ladders. Perhaps this had been what she was talking about?
From the way he talked, this was clearly a conversation Phoenix had experienced many times.
Over ladders.
The mere thought of it seemed laughable.
"Could you perhaps help me down?" Layton sat down on the edge of the hole. "I can hold the ladder steady for you once I have my footing."
"Sure, hang on," said Phoenix.
He offered his arm, and Layton clung as tightly as he could without hurting the man and used his stability to lower himself down onto the ladder, which rocked unsteadily as he pressed his weight onto the wood. He waited until both of his feet were securely on the rungs and until he had a tight grip on the ladder's sides before he let go of Phoenix's arm.
That done, he climbed down to the rock floor, and blew out a relieved sigh as soon as his feet were on solid ground again. A cloud of steam billowed from his mouth as he did so.
He grabbed the ladder and held it steady as Phoenix, wide-eyed and terrified, eased himself down onto the rungs. The way he descended was slow and steady, suggesting that he didn't trust this thing in the slightest, and he jumped off as soon as he was low enough and bent double to catch his breath.
"Is something wrong?" Layton asked, as this was not normal going-down-a-ladder behaviour.
"I don't do heights well, okay?" Phoenix panted. "I thought I'd already told you that!"
He straightened up and rubbed his hands together.
"Jeez, it just keeps getting colder!" he complained.
"If your fingers get stiff," said Layton, "you're welcome to warm them on my lantern."
"It's my nose I'm more worried about!"
"If you rub it with your fingers, you'll kill two birds with one stone."
He turned his lantern down the passage they had just entered. It led down further still, a slope equally as steep as the one they had struggled with just earlier and equally as dappled with eroded dents.
Would it really have been so hard to give this place stairs?
Layton took a very careful step down. As the passage above had before it, this tunnel turned a few metres down, but unlike the caves up above, he could see something in his light.
Was that colour? Had someone graffitied on a cave wall?
Or perhaps...
Before the Professor had any more time to think about the possibilities, his attention was caught by sudden, desperate gasping, as though Phoenix was struggling to breathe. Whipping around in alarm, he saw that man squinting, his nose scrunched up, until-
"Ah-CHEURGH!"
The sound resonated around the cave like it had been shouted into a megaphone.
"Bless you."
"Thanks," said Phoenix, rubbing his nose with a sniff.
Layton stayed rooted to the spot. He didn't dare move one millimetre.
"...Phoenix?" he said softly.
"Sorry about that," said Phoenix, looking around at the walls. "Man, I really hope I don't catch a cold down here-"
"I didn't say anything," Layton told him.
Phoenix gave him another stare of bafflement, but the Professor's heart was pounding too loud for him to care.
"You didn't?" he asked. "But then who..."
He trailed off.
Layton didn't want to move. He barely dared to breathe. He saw Phoenix following his lantern's beam down into the tunnel, but by the looks of things, he too was far too frightened to consider taking one more step down the slope.
There had to be some rational explanation for this, he considered.
Maybe somebody had followed them into the tunnel? No, with how quiet it was in here, they would definitely have been able to hear their footsteps. Somebody who had already been in the cave? No, that wasn't possible either. He and Phoenix were the only ones in here.
And that voice had sounded like it was speaking right inside his ear.
Like the person speaking was right beside him.
He grabbed his own hand. The one still holding the lantern. Tried to somehow, in any way at all, keep the light from shaking-
"Why are you here?"
Layton's heart all but stopped.
Who in the world had said that?
"...the thought occurs that this may not have been the best idea," he said as loud as he dared.
"Yeah, it just occurred to me too," said Phoenix.
"We should leave."
"Yeah, totally."
No mind was paid to the ladder's height or how rickety it was as Phoenix scrambled up it to the cave's upper level and pulled Layton up behind him, with Layton clinging to both his hat and Phoenix's hand for dear life. He almost lost his grip on his lantern as they ran, slipping and struggling, around the corner and up the slope to where the puzzle door had blocked their path.
Only then, when the barred-door exit was in full view, did either of them pause to catch their breath. Phoenix bent double while Layton leaned against the wall for support.
A shot of pain stabbed through his body at his abdomen and he winced and clutched his side.
Just what he needed to top off the panic. A stitch.
"What the hell was that?!" Phoenix spluttered.
"Language!" Layton chastised.
"You're really worried about swearing at a time like this?!" Phoenix demanded.
The Professor didn't reply. He drew in the deepest breath he could manage, even though it felt like he was freezing his own throat.
"I don't understand," he gasped. "We weren't followed. We would have seen whoever followed us on our way back up."
He tugged on his scarf, trying to loosen his throat and allow himself to breathe.
"We would have seen someone if they had been in the cave already," he pointed out. "That voice didn't echo-"
"It sounded like it was right in my ear!" cried Phoenix, and he forced himself to straighten up. "Any closer and it would've been inside my goddamn head!"
Layton forced himself to breathe slowly. His stitch started ebbing away and his pounding heart finally lowered its intensity.
"Is it possible we had speakers planted on us at some point?" he considered.
"When?" asked Phoenix. "Have either of us been close enough to anyone to get bugged?"
The Professor felt around his hat's brim. Perhaps something had been planted there while it was in the police station... no, he couldn't feel anything. Besides which, Phoenix had heard it too, and his hat had only ever been in his custody.
"...no, we haven't," Layton realised. "Other than to each other, of course."
Phoenix clutched a hand to his chest as he forced his own breathing to even out.
"I know you don't want to believe it," he said, "but I really, really think this cave is haunted. If not the village, then at least this cave."
"I'm sure there must be a more rational explanation," Layton retorted.
Phoenix just stared at him again, clearly waiting for an elaboration.
But no matter how he wracked his brain, Layton came up empty.
"...but I can't for the life of me think of what it could be," he confessed.
"Let's get back to the cottage," said Phoenix. "I know I'll be able to think better once I've warmed up in front of a fire."
"Oh goodness, yes," Layton sighed.
"Did you hear that?"
"I think it was in there!"
The voices had come from outside the cave entrance.
At least, it was probably safe to assume there was more than one voice. Given that both statements had sounded exactly the same, it was almost certainly the two people that Layton and Phoenix wanted to see the least.
Layton flicked his lantern off for safety.
"...the other way out," said Phoenix.
"Naturally," said Layton.
He took his friend by the hand and squinted into the darkness, following a faint light from by their side and moving slowly to keep from tripping over any stalagmites that might be nearby.
The moment the unlocked way out came into view, he broke into a run, and he and Phoenix sprinted the rest of the way until they were both outside.
Layton looked up.
"I have goosebumps all over my back," Phoenix complained. "I don't know if I've ever-"
"My word!" Layton sighed breathlessly.
Phoenix followed his gaze again and saw what had him so captivated.
"...whoa."
And really, what other reaction could either of them expect?
They had emerged from the cave to a sky that had come alive.
Immense sheets of brilliant blue, edge with green and purple, danced through the atmosphere over their heads, blocking out every star they crossed.
They hung like curtains of vivid light, shimmering, shining, barely moving, undisturbed by any breeze that may have blown through the mountains.
A few thin clouds had coalesced in the sky since the last time either of them had seen it, but somehow, rather than ruining the view, it only made the display more spectacular. More aethereal. More alien.
More beautiful.
This time, Layton's lack of movement was because he didn't want to move. He didn't want to go anywhere. Didn't even want to do anything that might make him tear his eyes away from the stunning stellar display that wavered above their heads.
He didn't even want to breathe because he knew it would mist in front of his face and ruin his view.
It was so huge. So bright.
So silent.
"...I had no idea we were far north enough..." he muttered.
It was the quiet that really completed the experience. A sight like this was the sort a person would expect to make noise. Some low humming, perhaps, or at least a whistle of wind, but instead the aurora was utterly silent.
He regretted speaking. He shouldn't have disturbed that silence.
"I've only ever seen auroras in pictures and videos," he heard Phoenix whisper. "It always looks so fast..."
"...those are generally time-lapses," Layton explained as softly as he could. "As you can see, it... it tends to remain quite still..."
Even as far above his head as he knew this spectacular display was, he barely wanted to speak. He felt as though talking too loudly would blow it away and ruin the breathtaking scene.
He didn't want to tear his eyes away. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen anything like this.
"I didn't even know it could be blue," Phoenix sighed.
Somehow Layton managed to take his eyes off the sky and look up at his friend's face, and he found that Phoenix was staring up at the sky, his eyes wide and jaw slack, just as awestruck as Layton felt right now.
The aurora shimmered, reflecting in his eyes.
It was dazzling.
"Is blue your favourite colour?" Layton asked for a reason he couldn't pin down.
"...yeah," Phoenix breathed.
Layton looked back up at the sky.
"...mine is orange."
"...thought so."
Above the mountains, above the trees, above the clouds. It barely even felt like this was a natural part of their world.
He felt honoured, privileged even, to be able to watch for so long.
To stand here... outside in Fatargan...
...completely exposed...
Much as it felt like a sin, Layton lowered his head and adjusted his hat so that he wouldn't be tempted to look up again.
"We can't linger," he told Phoenix. "Much as I would love to take pause and watch this for the rest of the night, we can't afford to risk getting caught if those officers are out and about. Come along."
"W-wait." Phoenix stopped him before they had even moved a foot and he dug into his jacket's pocket. "Take this."
He held out his open hand to the Professor, revealing an amulet that shimmered turquoise in the aurora's light. Carved from jade, perhaps? It looked like a number 9, or perhaps like a flame.
"What's this?" Layton took it from Phoenix's fingers. "Is this your seeing stone?"
"Kind of," said Phoenix, "but I can see the ghosts without it. You can't."
"...I see," said Layton.
He took a deep breath and raised the amulet to his eye, and through the hole, he looked around at the street they stood before.
His blood curdled in his veins.
Once again, the street was clogged with translucent people, but they weren't just stumbling around anymore. One was running. One was hammering its fists into another's face. Some were screaming at the sky.
When one of them looked right at Layton and bared its teeth, a shot of adrenaline pulsed through his body and every hair on his head stood on end.
"Goodness..." What to say that wouldn't make him look ungentlemanly? "...look at how many there are!"
"They seem a bit riled up," Phoenix warned. "Check out that one over there."
He pointed to the nearby post office, where one of the see-through people was not just leaning against the front door, but hammering their head into the wood over and over again, intermittently scratching with what remained of their fingers.
"Either that door cracked a joke about his mom," said Phoenix, "or-"
"-he's trying to get inside," Layton finished grimly.
It wasn't until Phoenix gave his fingers a squeeze that Layton realised they were still holding each other's hands, but by this point, it didn't feel like letting go would be in either of their best interests.
"Stick right behind me," said Phoenix. "We'll have to move as slowly as we can."
Layton tried to swallow his fear.
"I shall think of it like we're navigating a very tight maze of cacti," he said. "One wrong move-"
"-would result in one heck of a lot of pain," Phoenix finished for him. "Exactly. So watch yourself. We'll have to be careful."
He stepped ahead of Layton, who kept the amulet pressed to his face.
Small wonder the people of this village were so afraid of going outside at night. The spirits were everywhere. Not only that, but as he had seen just now, they definitely did have tendencies for violence. All he could do was hope they didn't decide to turn that violence on the living.
He kept his grip tight on Phoenix's hand as they slowly, carefully, walked over to the stairs to the library, and Layton struggled not to stumble as he had to step over a translucent disembodied leg that lay abandoned on one of the steps. He followed Phoenix's lead as the taller man weaved left, then right, to avoid walking through figures who were tearing their hair out, scratching their faces and silently screaming at the sky.
The Professor avoided looking up. He didn't want his view of the aurora to be tainted by this horrific image.
Phoenix gave his hand a squeeze. Layton squeezed back.
As they moved past the library, he saw even more of them. One was standing atop a heap of its unmoving peers and, as Layton watched, it thrust its arm into one of the glass panes that made up the windows before withdrawing it with a noiseless shriek. The window rattled wildly at the motion. Another stood at the door, its head pressed against the wood, scratching at the surface so hard that if that person were still alive, it would have drawn blood.
Hopefully any person looking out their window wouldn't be able to see Layton or Phoenix through the spectral throng, or if they did, would assume they were a part of it.
Layton kept his grip tight on Phoenix's hand as they approached the bridge. He took a deep breath and held it at the sight of one of the ghosts, if that was indeed what they were, tossing another over the railing before throwing itself after them into the gorge far below. Were he to release that breath, he had no doubt he would scream in unbridled terror.
How on earth was Phoenix ignoring all of this?!
The Professor considered speaking up. Considered asking him how he was coping. How he was able to resist the fear that permeated every fibre of Layton's core as they were surrounded on all sides by see-through people attacking themselves and each other and struggling to get inside the village's buildings.
No.
No, he couldn't. That was the worst possible idea.
Thank goodness the throng began to lessen as they steadily crunched through the snow and across the bridge. Perhaps they wouldn't have been half as frightening if it weren't for the aurora's light reflecting off that snow, making it glow bright blue and throwing these figures' hideous features into sharp relief.
Layton set his jaw. Fixed his eyes forward. Focused on moving ahead.
He had to do anything he could to avoid looking.
If only the morbid curiosity that came with being an Englishman wasn't so horrifically overpowering...
"...good grief..." he breathed.
They stepped off the bridge. Mounted the stone shelf. They were almost there.
And then an eyeless face appeared mere centimetres from Layton's nose.
"AH!"
The amulet flew out of his fingers and the spirits vanished from view.
Phoenix whipped around, suddenly on high alert.
"What happened?" he demanded. "Where's the magatama?!"
"I'm very sorry! I dropped it!" said Layton, not wishing to move in case he was surrounded on all sides.
"Hang on," said Phoenix, reaching down to the hole the amulet had made in the snow. "Let me- AGH!"
"Phoenix!" cried Layton as his friend fell to his knees.
While Phoenix pressed his hand into the left side of his abdomen, the Professor pulled his free arm over his shoulder and forced himself to forget the crowd of spectral wanderers that no doubt still hovered around them. He ran, dragging his companion by his side, back to their cottage.
He snatched his key out of his pocket and unlocked the door at lightning speed, dragged Phoenix inside and threw that door closed behind them again.
"What happened?" he asked as he locked it.
"I don't know!" Phoenix was now pressing both hands against his side. "I- ow! I think..."
He leaned against the door as Layton tugged his coat off.
"...while I was distracted," he said, "one of them-"
"Your left side?" Layton hung his coat on a nearby hook. "Take off your jacket. Let me have a look."
Phoenix took a deep, hissing breath and pulled his blue jacket off, squinting in what little dim light the streetlamps and aurora afforded them.
"I think one of them took a swipe at me-" he started.
"You're bleeding through your shirt!"
Layton stared in horror at the growing patch of darkness that was spreading across Phoenix's left side.
"That can't be good," Phoenix said flatly.
The Professor took Phoenix's shirt by the hem and lifted it aside.
"My word!" he gasped.
No less than five long cuts had been gouged into Phoenix's skin. They wept blood with every breath and reached right around from just before his back to his stomach, ending only centimetres short of his navel. Even as Layton watched, more blood trickled down Phoenix's side towards his jeans, sparkling in the faint blue light.
"...how bad is it?" Phoenix asked.
"You may have been correct about one of them swiping at you," Layton told him, noting the even spacing and how the outermost scratches were shorter than the rest. "These are very clearly claw marks from a human hand!"
He pulled his lantern out so that he could get a better look, but regretted it almost the moment he had switched it on. The cuts were deep red, stark against Phoenix's skin, and the trails of blood that seeped down his side were almost neon under the lantern's light.
"...it hurts..." Phoenix groaned.
"The cuts appear quite shallow," said Layton. "Deep enough to break skin and cause bleeding, but I don't think you'll have suffered any muscle or organ damage. Go and sit down on the sofa. I'll get a fire going and arrange some water to clean you up."
He ran to the fireplace, resting his lantern on one of the sofas as he passed, and he piled the fireplace high with twigs, leaves and bark from a bucket that sat beside the grate. He heard Phoenix sit down on a sofa, grunting with effort, as he stacked a log on top of the heap of tinder and reached for a nearby box of firelighters.
"Crud, I can barely see it!" Phoenix said behind him.
Layton slid the solid white block out of the box and broke off a few chunks before slotting them into gaps in the tinder.
"It would appear Luke's research wasn't wrong after all," he thought aloud as he picked up the box of matches. "Curious how they only attacked after I dropped your... you called it a magatama, didn't you?"
He struck a match (heaven's sake, it took five attempts to get a flame) and held it to each of the firelighters in turn, and he slotted the protective grille in front of the fireplace once he had some good-sized flames going.
"Yeah, uh, Maya gave it to me," said Phoenix. "...long story..."
Once he could see that the tinder was catching, he rested the boxes of matches and firelighters beside the grate – careful that they wouldn't catch – and he turned back and jogged to the kitchenette.
"I'm afraid the water shall have to be quite hot to be effective," he told Phoenix as he filled the kettle, and once it had started hissing, he opened the cupboards to have a good, thorough rummage. "Not only that, but I'm going to add some soap to make doubly sure you don't get an infection."
He found a large mixing bowl right at the back of one of the cupboards, so he set it on the countertop beside the kettle.
"You aren't going to use hand soap, are you?" asked Phoenix.
A quick look at the cleaning products under the sink turned up nothing, so Layton picked up the bottle of hand soap beside the sink and squirted some into the bowl.
"I personally would have preferred a proper medical grade disinfectant," he told Phoenix, "along the lines of Dettol or Milton, but we appear to be lacking in that department." He cupped the bowl in one arm. "So long as the wounds are treated quickly and with hot water, I would expect us to not have any issues-"
"Oh god, I can see them now and I really wish I couldn't!"
"Please try to stay calm, Phoenix!" Layton splashed cold water into the bowl from the tap as the kettle neared the end of its boiling cycle. "A higher heart rate will only make the bleeding worse! Get your breathing under control!"
He found a fresh, clean dishcloth as the kettle finished boiling with a click. He pressed up his hat's brim, careful to keep it away from the steam as he poured the hot water into the bowl.
He tested it with his fingers.
Just hot enough.
He cradled the bowl in one arm, struggling not to gasp and wince at the hot glass pressing against his skin through the few millimetres of fabric that kept him safe, and he walked as steadily and carefully as he could to the sofa that Phoenix had sat himself upon. Smart man. He already had his left side facing the fire's light.
Said fire was roaring nicely by now. The room was quickly warming up.
"You'll have to lift up your shirt," Layton told Phoenix as he sat down, and he set the bowl on the floor and his hat on the seat beside him. "Hold it up so that none of the fabric gets caught in the wounds."
He echoed the motion by tugging his jacket off, and he laid it across the back of the sofa so that it wouldn't get in the way before rolling his shirt sleeves up.
Phoenix hissed in pain as the air bit at the scratches.
Thank goodness the fire was nice and strong. Turning on the main lights would just disturb the kids.
Layton dropped the cloth into the bowl and tried not to wince as he pulled it back out. Perhaps he had been wrong about his previous assessment; this water was incredibly hot.
"Quite remarkable that your jacket and shirt remain undamaged," he noted as he wrung out the cloth. "Under most normal circumstances, an injury such as this would have caused quite substantial damage to whatever you were wearing."
He turned to Phoenix, who now held his shirt right up at his armpit.
"...just my luck, I guess," he grumbled.
The Professor pressed the hot, damp cloth to the scratches.
"AGH!"
"Is it too hot?" Layton took the cloth back.
"No, it's fine!" Phoenix lied. "It's fine, it's the soap! Gnh, that stings!"
He flinched again as Layton moved in with the cloth, but this time, he only wiped the trickled-down blood off his skin.
"A necessary evil, I'm afraid." He wrapped the hot cloth around his finger to try to keep it from touching the wounds. "Be glad your clothing didn't get caught in the wounds. It would have substantially increased your risk of infection."
As soon as he wiped one trickle away, another fresh droplet sprang forth.
There was nothing for it. He had to clean the wounds before anything else.
He pressed the cloth against Phoenix's side again.
The sound of his friend cringing and wincing in pain was like a knife through his heart.
When he took the cloth away, it was stained with visible lines of deep red. He dropped it in the bowl again and swilled it around before giving it another thorough squeeze.
"I'm sorry to have caused this," he said as he went back in for another agonising dab. "Perhaps I should have requested Luke's aid after all."
"But then he would have been attacked instead!" Phoenix replied through gritted teeth.
The image only flashed through Layton's mind for a moment – an image of it being Luke instead, his dearest friend, sitting before him bleeding and exhausted – and he tried his hardest to shake it out of his head.
"A fair point," he decided. "However, upon reflection, it's very clear that something – or someone – doesn't want us inside those tunnels."
He shifted position, pressing the cloth harder into Phoenix's side.
"Not at night, at least," Phoenix groaned. "You think it might go better if you try during the day?" Layton shifted again. "Ow..."
"Perhaps," said Layton.
Phoenix's hisses and wincing were already cutting through him, but he knew he had to be more thorough. He'd already seen his friend hurt enough. He couldn't risk an infection on top of that.
He pulled the cloth towards himself, wiping down the length of the cuts.
"Ah! Ow!" Phoenix gasped and panted in pain. "If it helps, I... I don't hold it against you. This could've- ah! It could've been your last chance to investigate."
Layton cleaned the cloth again. It was hard to see the water's colour in this light, but he could tell it was getting darker.
"I'm sure I can wrangle myself up an expedition to explore the caves more thoroughly once we leave Fatargan," he assured Phoenix as he wrung out the excess, "but yes. I had an opportunity and I wanted to seize it, although I would never have attempted it had I known it would result in you getting hurt."
"Hey, it's fine!" said Phoenix, and he flinched again as Layton went in with the cloth. "Ow... I've had my fair share of injuries by now. I think I've gotten used to it."
The Professor froze in horror.
"Phoenix, that is profoundly worrying!" he whispered hoarsely.
Phoenix just sniggered at him, but was soon cut off by another hiss of pain.
"It's fine, I swear," he groaned.
Layton pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth to keep himself from speaking.
Whatever he said, it was obvious Phoenix was going to disagree. This man was determined not to view him as guilty in any sense of the word.
Typical defence attorney...
"Although, if you'd prefer to talk about something more, uh..." Phoenix grunted in pain again. "...pleasant, you won't find me complaining."
Reminding himself that he was a polite gentleman was really becoming difficult for Layton right now.
"Anything to take our minds off your wounds, the apparently haunted caves and our isolation in this village for a little while would be just fine by me," he said, forcing himself to speak slowly and avoid snapping.
Rather than tossing the cloth straight back in the bowl again, he wiped away the blood that had dribbled down below the wounds.
"Well, uh..."
The tone of Phoenix's voice led Layton to hesitate.
What had made him so embarrassed all of a sudden?
"Yes?" he prompted. "What is it?"
He swilled out the cloth again.
"You know earlier when we were talking about music?" Phoenix asked. "About the stuff we can play on the violin from memory?"
Oh. No wonder the poor man was suddenly so nervous.
"Ah, certainly," said Layton as he squeezed the cloth. "Quite a wonderful surprise to have learned not only that you can play, but your playing is rather lovely."
"Don't!" Phoenix whined bashfully, but the embarrassment vanished as the cloth came in again. "A-ah... anyway, you said you had some guilty pleasures. You know, from pop music?"
Layton froze again.
"Oh dear," he muttered. "You want me to be more specific, don't you?"
He pressed again, eliciting another wince.
"...if you don't mind," said Phoenix.
Images flashed through Layton's mind again. Memories of his youth, hiding away in his room with a well-loved Walkman and heavy, cheap headphones, listening to the stash of CDs that he kept secreted under his bed in an old shoebox...
"...I suppose..." He couldn't help remembering the faces from those album covers, not to mention that absurd footwear. "...yes, I do owe you for dragging you out at night and getting you hurt."
"Well?" asked Phoenix.
The Professor took a deep breath.
He owed this to his friend, he told himself. Phoenix had earned the right to know. He was just going to get annoyed if he was held out on, so the best thing to do would be to just suck it up and tell the truth.
"...the Spice Girls."
Unsurprisingly, Phoenix snorted.
"You what?!" he laughed.
"Their popularity hit its peak while I was in my teens," Layton explained, his cheeks growing hotter with every word he spoke. "I was never open about it because I knew my friends would laugh at me, but..." He wiped the wounds as gently as he could. "...I bought every single one of their albums."
"Oh my god!" Phoenix buried his face in the back of the sofa, shoulders shaking in helpless laughter.
"I never bought any merchandise," Layton continued, still cleaning the scratches. "Nor did I ever shell out on concert tickets, even when they were performing in a city near mine, and I never went so far as to buy singles on CD because I had told Ma and Pa that the albums were gifts. They would have become suspicious."
He had a feeling that by this point, his face was roughly the same colour as the band on his hat. Phoenix winced again, but his laughter didn't stop.
"...this is amazing..." he squeaked.
"When I did listen to the albums, it was always in private," Layton confessed as he washed the cloth again. "Even when I was alone, I used headphones. My favourite of their songs is Stop. I'm sure you know the one I mean."
The water was still scalding hot, but he tried not to react as he wrung it out.
When he turned back to Phoenix, the man was staring at him.
"...well?" he said with a worrying little smirk.
"Well what?" asked Layton, rubbing the cloth to work up a lather.
"Are you going to tell me what you want? What you really really want?"
"Don't you dare!" Layton didn't hesitate as he went back in with the cloth.
"Ow!" Phoenix cried out in pain, but soon dredged his smile back up. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I couldn't resist! The opportunity was right there! I had to!"
Somehow Layton found himself smiling right along with him.
"It's fine," he said, relieved that at long last, somebody had been told. "I know you weren't speaking with malice."
He dabbed at the lowest cut. It looked like it was finally starting to scab.
"Ah, ow..." Then again, perhaps not. "...if it makes you feel better..."
"Oh?" Layton eyed Phoenix with amusement. "Am I about to hear the musical guilty pleasure of Phoenix Wright?"
Phoenix grimaced again, but when his face straightened out, his cheeks had flushed a brilliant red.
"...Elton John," he said.
Layton continued cleaning his bloodstained skin, waiting for him to continue.
But he didn't.
"Hm?" He eyed Phoenix's blush in confusion. "Is that all?"
"What do you mean 'is that all'?" Phoenix demanded. "You're not going to laugh at me?"
"Not in the slightest!" Layton replied. "I'll have you know I enjoy his music quite openly."
"You lucky jerk!" Phoenix complained as Layton cleaned the cloth again. "Then again, I guess you weren't an American college student in the early 2010s when it was all-" He hissed again as Layton wiped down the length of the wounds. "...god, so much music back then just sucked, so I'd hide in my dorm room and hype myself up to study with I'm Still Standing."
"Is that one your favourite?" asked Layton. "Mine is Rocket Man."
"Ah..." Phoenix took time to wince before he continued. "...nah, my favourite's Tiny Dancer. I've always just felt it was..." Another wince. "...something about it's just comforting. It's a real sweet song."
Layton gave the cloth another rinse. The water was noticeably dark by now. It seemed like the bleeding was finally letting up.
"Why do you say it's your guilty pleasure?" he asked.
"Ow..." Phoenix cringed, his face still red as a rose. "I listened to his music the most while I was with Dahlia. My girlfriend."
And since then, he had come to regard that music as something to be ashamed of...
"Not an amicable break-up, I assume?" asked Layton.
Phoenix hit him with a glare.
"She tried to kill me," he said flatly.
"Ah." Layton felt himself flush again. "Definitely not amicable then."
He saw another drop of blood beading on one of the scratches and swept in with the cloth to dab it away.
Perhaps... no, maybe he should just keep it to himself... but then again, that idea seemed silly, maybe even immature...
"If it makes you feel better," he decided to say, "Claire's favourite song was an Elton John number."
Just saying her name was painful.
He hoped he could keep a knot from hardening in his throat.
"Claire?" asked Phoenix.
Layton took a deep breath.
"My girlfriend," he explained. "She told me once that Candle in the Wind was her favourite song. She said there was something very sweet about mourning a person you only ever wished you could know, although..."
He trailed off, even though he knew Phoenix was going to push him for more information.
"Did things go wrong with her?"
Yes, there it was.
Layton sighed. As long as he kept his replies simple, he wouldn't have to dwell too much on the subject he was talking about.
"That song has been poisoned for me," he told Phoenix. "I can't listen to it without being struck with grief. A few weeks ago, I was enjoying a cup of tea in my office and listening to the radio when they played that song, and..."
He swallowed. Just as he had feared, he could feel a lump getting hard in his throat.
"I got tears all over the fossil I was cleaning."
Phoenix didn't wince this time as he went back in with the cloth. His fingers twitched, but rather than a grimace of pain, he was frowning.
"I'm sorry," he said. "How did she die?"
"An experiment gone wrong," Layton replied. "She was caught in an explosion."
That was all he needed to say. More to the point, it was all he wanted to say.
He wiped his eyes on the back of his damp, bare hand.
"Ridiculous," he muttered. "That was twelve years ago and yet it's still painful to think about."
"What? What're you talking about?" asked Phoenix as Layton returned to his cleaning. "If your girlfriend got blown up, no matter how far back it was, you've still got every right to be upset about it! Ah, ow..." He hissed through his teeth again. "I know I still feel awful whenever I get to thinking about Mia."
For a moment, the Professor came close to correcting him and stating that it was 'Maya' but with how close she and Phoenix had been, would he really have been wrong about that?
"Mia, you say?" he asked.
"My boss," said Phoenix. "Maya's older sister. The reason I was able to become a lawyer."
His face fell, eyes downcast.
"...she was the victim in my second ever case. A murder case."
Oh.
These weren't the best circumstances to find oneself matched by, but nevertheless, it was understandable that he may have chosen to admit that here and now.
To think that just moments ago, Phoenix had been teasing him about liking the Spice Girls.
"...my apologies," said Layton.
"I'm the one who should be apologising," said Phoenix. "Should've known better than to ask about AH!"
"I'm sorry!" Layton ripped his hand away from his friend's body.
"Holy cr... jeez!" Phoenix faltered, clearly wanting to press his hand to his side, as Layton unwrapped the bloodstained cloth from around his fingertip. "It's fine. I-I'm okay. I know you wouldn't have done that on purpose, it just... dang, that smarts..."
As he rinsed the cloth again, Layton wondered if that accident was meant to make him stop. It had already been late by the time they ventured out into the village, but if he was making such mistakes as sticking his finger into an open wound, he must have been tired.
Thank goodness he had remembered the soap.
"I wish we had some proper bandages," he said, and he cleaned up the small, diluted dribble of mess he had made. "All I can do is clean the blood away until it clots and dries. Thank heavens we seem to be almost there."
"Didn't mean to shout so loud," Phoenix said softly. "I hope I didn't wake the kids up."
"Not to worry," said Layton. "Luke could easily sleep through a bomb falling on his house."
Phoenix snorted in laughter again.
"Trucy's the same," he replied. "Some mornings, I have to hold a plate of eggs right in front of her nose and lure her to the kitchen with them, otherwise she won't get out of bed. Then again, sometimes she has to do the same for me!"
Layton managed a smile. No hard feelings, it seemed.
When he took the cloth away, he counted out a number of seconds.
No more trickles of blood. Nor did the wounds look as bright as they had when they had started.
"I think the bleeding's stopped," he told Phoenix, and he dropped the cloth into the bowl. "I'm afraid I don't have any real bandages." He stood and took up the bowl. "Of all the things I packed for our journey, a fully stocked first-aid kit wasn't among them, nor is it among the items provided by whoever is renting this cottage to Luke and I."
He squeezed out the cloth in the kitchen sink and, after a moment of thought, threw it into the nearby bin.
"At this point, I'd be fine with just a towel duct-taped to my body," Phoenix said behind him. "Whatever works, works."
"Not to worry," Layton replied, and he tipped the bloody water down the sink. "I don't think that shall be necessary, although you may wish to change into a fresh shirt. It wouldn't do to walk around wearing a gigantic bloodstain."
"Hey, it isn't gigantic!" Phoenix argued back.
The Professor set the bowl beside the sink to be washed tomorrow morning and turned to see, lit up by the fire, Phoenix staring down at the dark patch that had blanketed his shirt's lower left side.
"...then again, it isn't exactly small, either," he decided, and he got to his feet and made a beeline for the bags he had deposited beside the front door.
Layton averted his eyes as he tugged that shirt off.
"Not only that," he added while facing away, "but I think I would prefer to keep a closer eye on you in case something goes wrong during the night." He waited until the sound of a zipper had stopped. "If your wound is truly supernatural in nature, we have no way of telling what it could do to you."
He looked back just in time to see Phoenix straightening his fresh shirt.
"Jeez, way to be ominous, Doctor Doom," he said, stuffing the bloodstained discard into one of his bag's pockets.
The Professor turned to him with a frown as he unravelled his sleeves.
"With that in mind," he continued, "I'd like you to stay as close as possible. That means no sleeping on the sofa."
"Seriously?" asked Phoenix in unhidden disbelief. "Then where do you expect me to sleep? On the floor?"
Layton shook his head.
Surely he didn't have to spell it out, did he?
Phoenix was a smart man. A very smart and very practical man. He could put the pieces together.
Sure enough, his blank stare at the Professor filled with astonishment.
"...you're kidding," he said.
"Sofas such as these aren't suited to sleeping, Phoenix," Layton stated. "You would be far more comfortable in a bed. If you don't mind Trucy sharing with Luke, then you don't mind doing it yourself, do you?"
Phoenix stood bolt upright, suddenly bright red again.
"Well, Trucy is one thing, but..." He struggled to keep from touching his left side. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely, Phoenix," said Layton, affirming his decision with a smile and a nod.
"First you say you'll pay my rent, then you offer me a job, then you want me to sleep in your bed with you?!"
"Phoenix-"
"Just cut it out already! Quit it with the generosity! There's no way I'd ever be able to repay any of that, so stop making offers I'd never be able to live up to and-"
"Phoenix, you're doing it again."
A brief pass of confusion flickered into horrified regret.
Phoenix took a step back, pressing his fingers into his mess of wild hair.
"...I am, aren't I?" His hand shifted down to his eye. "...dammit..."
Layton moved closer, ignoring his instincts screaming at him to stay out of punching range, and he pulled Phoenix's hand down as gently as he could.
"It's as plain as day," he said. "You're exhausted."
The only response he got was a meek little nod.
"Come on," said Layton. "You'll be able to better focus on what to do tomorrow after you've had a good night's sleep."
Phoenix let out a long, worn-out sigh.
"...yeah," he said. "Yeah, I will."
Relieved, Layton stepped back, and he filled the bowl at the tap again to put the fire out.
O-o-O
"...hey."
"Hm?"
"Hershel?"
"...yes?"
"...thank you."
"...you're very welcome."