Chapter 5

“Gasp!”

Adele’s eyes flew open, startled.

Without thinking, she pressed the back of her hand to her lips. Then she realized — she wasn’t at the lakeshore. She was in front of a fireplace, logs crackling in the flames.

But the kiss from that day had felt far too real.

As if it were happening all over again, she could still feel his breath, the warmth that had settled onto her lips. And her whole body felt far too hot.

Hah. No wonder.

The fireplace in front of her was blazing, red flames about to leap right out of it.

She had no idea when she’d fallen asleep, but somewhere along the way she’d ended up lying on the sofa in Christine’s place, a blanket tucked over her.

“Chris?”

Adele called out, but there was no answer. There was no trace of him anywhere in the cramped little house.

It seemed he’d laid her down on the sofa while she slept, tucked a blanket over her, and left — not before piling the fireplace high with logs.

He could at least have woken me to say goodbye….

They’d lived ten years without a word between them, and yet she couldn’t understand why it stung so much that he’d left without one now.

I really am selfish.

It was me who abandoned him and left, after all.

She’d had no choice back then, but making excuses for it now wouldn’t change anything.

In the end, she had abandoned Christine and chosen another path.

If she went back to that day again, what would she choose this time?

It wasn’t a question she could easily answer, even now.

“Did he already leave?”

Lost in thought, Adele turned at the sound of Tanya’s voice.

Tanya was shrugging off her old coat, snow piled thick on it, making no effort to hide her disappointment.

“Already? It’s gotten dark out.”

“I thought maybe he’d stay the night.”

“Stay the night?! What are you saying!”

Adele jumped up to scold her, but Tanya only looked baffled in return.

“It’s snowing like mad outside. On a night with a blizzard like this, you’d put up even a passing stranger, wouldn’t you?”

Adele forced down her embarrassment and went to the window.

“…His carriage is big. He’ll be fine.”

Outside the window, snow was falling so heavily that everything had turned white.

He could have waited until it let up a little. What was he in such a hurry for, in weather like this…

“So was that really Count Weiss?”

Tanya asked, clearing the table where the teacups sat.

“Why?”

“No, it’s just — I can’t believe someone so important came all the way to our house.”

“If even you’ve heard of him, I suppose he really must be someone important.”

“Of course he is. He’s a war hero. Go out into the street right now and you’ll see little boys swinging sticks around, pretending to be the White Ghost.”

“The White Ghost?”

“The order of knights Count Weiss leads. He’s their Commander.”

Now that she thought of it, Adele had heard of the White Ghost Knights before — the most valiant order of knights in the Kalaim Empire.

And Christine was the one who led them….

“So does this mean our bad luck is finally over and the good times are starting?”

“What do you mean?”

“If Count Weiss went so far as to buy flowers and bring them here, it means he’s completely smitten with you, miss…”

“It’s nothing like that!”

Adele denied it firmly, but Tanya narrowed her eyes teasingly.

“Oh, come on. You should’ve seen how deep the Count’s eyes went when he looked at you. I thought, so this is what they mean by the eyes of a man in love.”

“I said it’s not like that!”

Tanya, as if she hadn’t heard a word of it, clasped her hands together and let her imagination run wild.

“I really hope it works out between you two! Then we could finally burn all the firewood we want this winter, couldn’t we? No, wait — he’s rich, so maybe we wouldn’t need firewood at all, we could burn coal instead! Aah, imagine the day we get to light a coal stove!”

Adele was speechless.

“I can afford a coal stove myself, you know!”

But Tanya only looked mournfully at the handful of logs left by the fireplace.

Adele shrank at once.

“W-well, of course I’d have to work harder at selling bread and cookies, but…”

“Will just working harder really be enough, though?”

Cast out of the Marquis’s house, Adele made her living mostly by selling cookies and bread. But because of the rumors surrounding her, the nobility wouldn’t buy from her.

Adele bristled at Tanya’s cruelly clear-eyed logic.

“So you just want me to end up with the Count for the sake of a coal stove?”

“Do you think that’s the only reason? I really do want you to be happy, miss. So you can show those awful Oswalds exactly what they lost.”

“I’m happy right now, actually. I have you, I have Mia, and I can bake bread and cookies whenever I like. I really am.”

Yes. That’s enough for me.

If she could wake to birdsong in the morning, and start her day with warm soup and soft bread.

If she could sip fragrant black tea and eat dessert while chatting with the people she loved.

If that quiet went on and on — no one visiting, nothing ever happening…

“By the way, miss, if a good man comes along, I’m getting married right away. So don’t count me into your happiness.”

“You absolute mood-killer!”

“See? I told you — flowers are always the way to a woman’s heart.”

At Zimmer’s voice, Christine turned, his face creased in a scowl, as if to ask what nonsense he was spouting now.

“You’ve never looked this healthy, Commander. Even in this cold, you’ve got quite the color in your cheeks…”

Then Zimmer caught Christine’s sharp glare and shut his mouth at once — a look that warned if he kept talking, he might not live to regret it.

Here I was, thinking he’d grown a touch more human, giving his heart to a woman like this.

“Well, I’ve learned one lesson today for certain — never let you pick out a gift again.”

“Don’t tell me the flowers didn’t work? You really are unusual, sir. Still, the two of you seemed to be having quite a nice time — so why are you leaving so soon?”

The carriage carrying the two of them pushed on through the heavy snow. Wild flurries battered fiercely against the carriage window.

They were men seasoned by the foulest weather the battlefield could throw at them. But to have the road back from meeting a woman — not a battlefield — prove this rough….

“It’s my mating season.”

Christine said it indifferently, and turned to gaze quietly out the carriage window.

“Ahh… now that you mention it, it is winter.”

Zimmer nodded, as if something had just clicked for him.

So that explained the flush on his face.

“By the way, what’s your relationship with the Marchioness? The two of you seemed like you’d known each other for a long time.”

At first, Zimmer had assumed Christine’s tastes simply ran strange, that he’d fallen for some odd widow. But from the little he’d glimpsed of the two of them together, there had been something wistful in the air between them.

“A woman who calls herself my older sister.”

“Wait, sister?”

Somehow the word “sister,” coming out of Christine’s mouth, sounded strange beyond belief.

“And the woman who turned me into a beast.”

“Sir?”

“Her scent, honestly, is unbearable. Especially on a night like this, with the snow coming down…”

Christine ran a fingertip over his reddened lips and clicked his tongue.

He hadn’t even had his voice break by the time he turned seventeen.

All the boys his age were growing visibly more like men with each passing day, but he still looked like a girl. Even his father seemed quietly worried about him for it.

But everything changed after the day he pulled Adele from the water.

At the thought of saving her as she sank deeper into the water, his heart had felt ready to burst. And then it was as if some tremendous force had come pouring into his body, churning up his flesh and mind alike.

Under the terrible pressure of it, his consciousness had slipped away into some far distance.

When Adele’s mouth-to-mouth brought him back, he’d felt himself far stronger than before, his senses sharpened to a new edge.

It felt as though some other being had taken up residence inside him.

No — it would be more accurate to say he felt as though he’d become some other being entirely.

Just the sight of her lips was enough to make his breath go ragged, unbearable.

The desire was so purely instinctive it frightened him.

When he’d felt her breath settle onto his own lips, he’d gone half out of his mind.

She was so sweet, so soft, that he couldn’t make himself stop.

And yet he was afraid — afraid that if he didn’t stop himself right there, he would break her.

Barely managing to tear himself from the kiss, he’d fled like a madman, deeper and deeper into the snow-covered forest.

And there, he understood.

That he was something other than an ordinary human being.

“Understood. I’ll look into the Marchioness a bit further, then.”

Zimmer said it with the confident air of a man saying “leave it to me” — there seemed to be far more history between the two of them than he’d guessed.

But Christine shook his head.

“No. Don’t bother.”

“Sir? But if the Marchioness was wrongly accused…”

“If she wanted to clear her name, she’d ask for help herself. That she hasn’t means she has nothing to clear.”

The answer was so unexpectedly cold that Zimmer could only stare at him, at a loss.

“That’s not right, sir. You thought it was strange yourself — that House Oswald would just keep on a wife who’d supposedly poisoned its head. If it’s really a false charge on someone you care for…”

“Someone I care for?”

Christine’s lips curled, faintly mocking.

“So… it isn’t that?”

Zimmer wondered if he’d gotten it wrong somewhere.

“Not every woman I want in my arms is a woman I care for.”

“Sir?”

“I’m not generous enough to care for a traitor.”

Christine’s voice was colder and more resolute than Zimmer had ever heard it.

The snow that had fallen for days finally stopped. The morning sun shone bright and clear, as if the blizzard had never happened at all.

“Adele! Adele!”

Just as Adele was finishing breakfast with Tanya, Mia came bursting into the house, looking as though she’d nearly died of boredom, cooped up indoors these past few days by the blizzard.

Sure enough, the moment she shrugged off her coat, she launched into a breathless flood of chatter.

“Adele, was that really Count Weiss who came by the other day? What did you two talk about? When’s he coming back? He brought flowers — don’t tell me he proposed?”

Most of her questions started with “Count Weiss” and ended with “Christine.”

But Adele, who had been listening quietly, startled Mia with words she never expected.

“Mia, can I ask you a favor?”

“What favor? Just name it. I’ll do anything!”

Mia leaned in eagerly, and Adele hesitated a moment before speaking.

“Your brother… I mean. He isn’t seeing anyone right now, is he?”

Mia’s older brother Mark worked as a veterinarian nearby. Most of his patients were livestock, but he looked after people too poor to afford a doctor, too.

He was a good man, gentle-looking and hardworking, raising a young son on his own.

And Adele had crossed paths with him a few times herself.

“He isn’t, but — why bring up Mark now, of all times?”

Adele forced a smile and made her request carefully.

“I thought, if he’s willing, maybe I could try seeing him seriously.”

“Adele, what on earth are you saying?”

Mia looked at her as though she’d started speaking some foreign language.

Adele, who’d expected exactly this reaction, broke into a nervous sweat and shrank back.

“It’s too much to ask, isn’t it? Someone like me, after all…”

“What are you talking about! You know Mark’s had feelings for you for ages. He just never said anything because you can’t stand being around men. But what about the Count?”

Mia seemed to have already decided, as settled fact, that Adele and Christine were together.

Adele thought she’d better set the misunderstanding straight.

“The thing about the Count is…”

That was the moment.

“Miss, you have a visitor! A visitor!”

Tanya came rushing in, startled.

Somehow, the whole scene felt like a repeat of a few days before.

“Don’t tell me Count Weiss is back again?”

Mia hurried to the window just as before and peered out. Then she muttered, dumbfounded.

“This is even more surprising than the Count showing up.”

Wondering what she meant, Adele looked out the window too.