What They Witnessed
What on earth did we just see?
Until this moment, the household staff had resented Aisha.
The child had nearly plunged their master into danger with a brazen, shameless lie. So when the deception came to light, everyone had assumed — had prayed — that she would be cast out.
House Krost was not protected by Calypse alone. Every soul who served within these walls helped guard it.
And yet, rather than turning her out, he had gone and adopted her into the direct bloodline?
Not only that — he had coaxed a resisting child with the promise of steak?
“…His Grace has become rather… fond of that child,” the chef murmured, still in shock.
“More than any of us imagined.”
“And yet the child seems thoroughly horrified by the arrangement…”
As the others stood around in a daze, head butler Brad spoke up with a sour look on his face.
“All the more suspicious, if you ask me. How on earth did she manage to work him over like that?”
“Yes… although…”
Head housekeeper May couldn’t finish the thought.
It had simply been too long.
Too long since she had seen the Duke without his mask. Too long since she had seen him laugh — genuinely laugh — with mischief dancing in his eyes.
In the end, she arrived at a bittersweet conclusion.
“…His Grace has commanded us to treat her as we would a duke’s daughter. There’s nothing for it.”
Everyone nodded.
The impromptu observation diary of the Duke and his unexpected foundling came to an anticlimactic close.
As the staff dispersed, however, one figure lingered in the shadows — watching everything that had unfolded.
“…Suspicious indeed,” the man murmured.
“I’ll need to keep a closer eye on this.”
Flash —
He raised his brilliantly gleaming monocle and disappeared like a ghost into the dark.
* * *
She had been swindled. She was fairly sure of it.
The gardener uncle had turned out to be Duke Calypse Krost.
Which meant — she had been adopted by Duke Calypse Krost.
“I was trying to break the original story, and somehow I ended up closer to it than ever — !”
Flap, flap, flap.
After thrashing about on the bed for a good while, Aisha flopped flat on her back with a sigh and stared at the ceiling.
That much she had accepted. What was done was done. But there was something else nagging at her.
Something that didn’t sit right.
“My actions changing the circumstances around me — that was the same as with Dorothy. I can make sense of that.”
But the duke’s daughter vanishing — when she should have been nowhere near here?
“Hmm.”
That she could not make sense of. Not even a little.
She stared up at the ceiling with flat, unamused eyes, pressing two small fingers against her temple.
She tried hard to recall the original lore surrounding the duke’s daughter, but for some reason the girl’s background had always been hazier than the other characters — sparse in detail, thin on description.
“The duchess is exactly the same.”
Apart from the note that she had vanished alongside her daughter, there was nothing to go on at all.
“…Something smells off. Very, very off.”
Former spy. Age five.
A meager résumé, admittedly. But her instincts were prickling all the same.
There’s something about the duchess and the duke’s daughter.
There was exactly one way to find out.
She would have to probe House Foss directly.
Aisha climbed off the bed and opened the small wardrobe in her room, pulling out her nightgown.
She had abandoned her spy mission, yes — but House Foss would not yet know of her defection. Dorothy, her only contact, was still in custody. Her original assignment had been to impersonate the duke’s true daughter, acting as a decoy in her place. Asking after the real daughter’s whereabouts would raise no flags.
She picked up a pen and wrote:
[Adoption into House Krost complete. What is Dorothy’s status? And where is the real direct-line daughter?]
She drizzled the message with poison infused with her ability, and the crooked handwriting dissolved in moments.
Then —
Knock, knock.
At the sudden sound, Aisha dove beneath her covers and composed herself into a performance of deep, peaceful slumber.
Presently, the businesslike voice of Head Housekeeper May came through the door.
“Wake up, Lady Aisha. Morning has already come.”
“Mm… yes…”
Eye-rubbing, patented child style: complete.
Yawning, patented child style: complete.
“……”
She had put in a reasonably thorough performance of waking up, if she did say so herself. But May had no interest in any of it — she was already busy arranging the breakfast tray.
“Breakfast this morning is a light citrus salad and mushroom soup.”
“Thank you! But there’s so much here — would you like to join me?”
“Yes, certainly.”
Aisha speared a piece of chicken from the salad with her fork and held it out toward May.
Click.
The door was already closed. May had already left.
“……”
A fork, hovering in the empty air, with a piece of chicken on it and nowhere to go.
“I suppose I’ll eat it myself.”
Chew, chew.
It was a little embarrassing, but not surprising. She had expected as much.
I lied about knowing the duke’s daughter’s location and got myself adopted based on that lie. Of course I look like a swindler.
Entirely understandable, everyone. I think I look like a swindler too.
Honestly, Calypse was the unusual one for taking her in at all.
But a bit of cold-shouldering from the staff? After the spy training she had endured, this was nothing.
She scraped the salad bowl clean and left the plate shining and empty.
“A child who eats well is a child who’s loved!”
She pulled the bell cord and, when the maids arrived, presented the pristine dish with puffy cheeks and a hopeful grin.
“Not a single bite left!”
But the maids collected the tray and the trolley and left without a word.
Ah. Our ladies are still a little shy around me.
It’s all right. It’s my fault.
She was climbing back onto the bed with that thought in mind when —
“Who’s there?!”
She sensed a presence behind her and spun around, darting off the bed into a fighting stance.
The Squirrel Technique, as she called it — a close-quarters combat posture designed to exploit her unusually small frame.
But —
“…Maybe I imagined it?”
Only sunlight fell through the open window, peaceful and unbothered. No one was there.
“I was sure I sensed someone near the window.”
She padded over and checked the view outside before finally letting herself breathe.
Of course. Who would climb up to a second-floor window?
Fortunately, there was no one outside.
Or so she thought.
“……?”
She craned her neck, leaning further out —
And caught a shadow rounding the corner of the castle wall, disappearing in haste.
It lasted only a few seconds, but she was certain of what she had seen.
A grown adult with their hair tied back.
Most likely a maid, then.
“…Suspecting me is one thing. But surveilling me? That won’t do.”
Someone was watching her? Her? Former professional spy?
Her pride smarted. She felt indignant.
I need to clear up these misunderstandings quickly.
She didn’t know who it was yet, but until she did — full alert, around the clock.
* * *
As it turned out, that vow lasted about as long as it took to eat breakfast.
Her days inside House Krost were not merely peaceful. They were astonishing in their stillness. Nobody paid attention to her whatsoever.
“Lady Aisha. Allow me to help you dress.”
“Thank you! Oh, by the way — what’s your favorite color?”
“…I don’t know.”
“I like blue. Probably because it matches my eyes, don’t you think?”
“……”
“What do you think? Does it suit me?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Very much.”
“How very much?”
“……”
Silence.
Time for the secret weapon, then. Eyes wide open — very, very wide.
Sparkle, sparkle.
Look at these eyes, dear sister. These clear, lake-blue eyes. Dive in, why don’t you? No one who’s ever dived into these eyes has managed to ignore me —
“Very.”
The maid sighed the word out like a slow exhale and turned away.
“You’re all ready. That will be all.”
She kept her gaze carefully aimed anywhere but Aisha’s face as she swept out of the room.
…Someone actually managed to ignore them. The acting teacher had always said this expression was a perfect ten out of ten.
“I need to sign up for acting lessons again,” Aisha muttered.
She sat on the edge of the bed, legs dangling, kicking them back and forth with a vague, melancholy air.
It was always like this — whenever she spoke to anyone, whenever she asked for anything, the result was the same blank wall.
Trudge, trudge.
She returned to her bedroom and buried her face in the pillow.
She hadn’t done anything strenuous, and yet her body felt like it was made of lead.
“This is what it feels like to have a conversation with a wall.”
Really, ladies — if you’re going to ignore me like this, why were you lurking outside my window earlier?
“…At least be hostile. I’m begging you. Fight me…”
Thump. Thump.
Her legs fell listlessly onto the mattress.
No response was worse than a bad response. That was exactly how she felt right now.
Then —
Knock, knock.
The familiar sound of a knock at the door.
She was not in the mood to face another set of deeply discomfited expressions right now.
“Aisha is sleeping. Please come back tomorrow.”
She closed her eyes and did her best impression of deep, even breathing — when:
“I wonder where the little one who wanted strawberry cake went off to.”
“…Hmm?”
Entirely unlike any of the maids. A low, unhurried voice.
She turned her head slowly, and there in the doorway — already open, as if he had let himself in — stood the Duke, offering a languid smile. He must have come straight from work; he was wearing his reading glasses, which gave him an unexpectedly scholarly air.
“Look at you. Running around all day before the adoption, and now that it’s official, you’ve turned into a little layabout?”
“That’s not what — mmph —”
She started to protest, but he had already leaned over and pinched her cheek.
He tilted his head, studying her face with a look of mild concern.
“Hmm. You don’t look well, little one.”
That might be because you’re pulling my cheek.
“Something happen?”
“Mmph — mmm.”
“…What, are you too upset to even speak?”
It’s because you’re still pulling my cheek, she tried to say, but it came out as nothing coherent.
