With a rather large school arc now seemingly behind us, we returned home to the cottage at the end of the last volume, where it’s time to wind down and relax a little bit, having dealt with Philomela’s grandmother and the accompanying corruption. Yet trouble stirs almost immediately again as the actions that Chise took by turning into a red dragon and swimming underneath the land have alerted the church and its allies, who are now investigating the incident to figure out who or what is responsible.
We start off this volume with Torrey giving Chise a bit of a history lesson about Britain and the witch hunts, which of course immediately triggers Chise’s visions and she almost ends up adding another curse to her long list of problems. Her being a Sleigh Beggy will never stop putting her into serious trouble whenever she is near anything even remotely magical, but she has good friends and allies here as Ruth jumps in to protect her. Back at Elias home we meet Jasper, the owner of said home and a long time patron of Elias due to a peculiar curse that runs through his family. His sister in law’s baby is currently the latest victim of the curse and they’re here to ask Elias to fix it. We learn about their history in a fun little side story and I wonder if we’ll return to this at some point with Chise putting a permanent stop to the curse. Oh right, and Zoe grows wings.
Josef and Elias meet at the information market where rumors spread. The aforementioned red dragon has been seen swimming under the British Isles and this is not a good sign, with a red dragon having the power to tear the earth apart into little pieces. Not many people and neighbours would appreciate that, but what they don’t know is that Chise is the one responsible. Josef ponders why he’s been left to stay here despite the horrible things he does and Elias basically informs him that he’s so unimportant that it doesn’t matter to him, which pisses Josef right off. Returning to the home, we learn that the first visitor of the year is underway.
The head of the St. George house is here with the official request for Elias and Chise to investigate the dragon, with Simon present to mediate for the church. Elias considers his options for a bit, which is a clear sign of growth for the mage. What’s even more important is that not only does he consider Chise’s safety, he also considers that of some of the other friends he’s made in recent memory, which is a completely new feeling to him. The duo confer and decide to help out with the investigation as long as nothing unsafe happens to Chise. That’s when we learn that Violet and Jasmine are also present, and Chise quickly figures out that there’s something odd about the twins.
This is where the different storylines start to slowly diverge into a common thread. Chise is likely undergoing a form of atavism. It’s a change in mythical creatures which was demonstrated by the dragon that went berserk as well as Zoe earlier in this volume suddenly growing wings. It’s a rare thing that can happen and it might be what is happening to Chise, allowing her to turn into a red dragon. Alongside all of this chaos, the St. George twins reveal that they have their own weird creature to deal with. It seems to be a newborn creature of unknown origin that has grown fond of the twins. They hid it from their father who found out within seconds, then they all hid it from Elias who also found out within seconds. They’re not very good at hiding things, but they think they are.
Lastly we zoom over to Lindell and the dragons, where a stranger approaches and danger lurks. Fortunately, it does seem like this stranger has no ill intent and is instead coming with a request. Hilda St. George asks him to come with her to England.
It seems like we’re still going to learn more about the different alchemist families, focusing on St. George now. They seem like good people and their house being responsible for dealing with all sorts of dangerous creatures probably means they’re pretty capable too. If only this doesn’t end in a tragedy for the twins or another curse for Chise. We can only hope. It looks like we will not have to wait nearly as long for the next volume, as the breaks around the last few volumes were quite long, but it looks like Volume 22 should be out in February or March. Look forward to another run through that volume when I get my hands on it and as always, thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 