He Had a Reason to Stay
Her thoughts ground to a halt. Her body went cold and rigid as ice.
“…Forgive me. I’ll take my leave.”
May herself seemed caught off guard by what she’d said. With a flustered bow, she disappeared quickly.
Cold silence settled over Aisha’s shoulders.
“……”
May was right.
She was the one who had broken the agreement first.
* * *
The Study — The Same Hour
With the child’s presence gone, the last trace of warmth bled out of the room. The faint playfulness that had lingered in the air vanished with it.
The moment Aisha stepped out, Calypse’s features sharpened — the softness around his eyes falling away in an instant. Sharp enough, in that first moment, to make even Knox flinch.
“Saying things in front of a child that shouldn’t be said.”
The cutting remark landed precisely. Knox straightened without thinking — reflexively, the way his body had learned to respond to that voice.
He was grateful, in a strange way. This, at least, meant the Duke had returned to himself.
“I sent her off with cake, didn’t I?” Knox replied. “Allow me to be direct, Your Grace. What is it about that child that you find compelling?”
“Compelling. Taking in a child with nowhere to go — is that something so remarkable for a ducal house to do?”
“If that were the whole of it, you’d have sent her to one of the orphanages under House Krost’s patronage, or to a noble family wishing for a child. That’s what you yourself once said was the proper thing to do.”
The truth was, this was not the first time an orphan had found their way to House Krost’s door.
After the Duke’s family had gone missing, the people of the kingdom had grown consumed with the search for — more accurately, the manufacture of — the lost duke’s daughter. The duke’s sons had been seen in public and couldn’t be replicated. But the daughter? She had vanished before her own father had ever laid eyes on her, five years after his long absence. The only identifiers were that she might share his coloring, or her mother’s. That was all anyone had to go on.
Orphanages and minor nobility across the kingdom had gone into a frenzy. Any infant who bore even a passing resemblance to the Duke or Duchess was presented, often forcibly, as the missing girl. Calypse had quietly seen to it that the genuinely abandoned among these children found good homes — until people began deliberately leaving newborn infants at the castle gates, calculating that the Duke would take them in.
Knox knew how much bitterness that had cost him. He had watched it carve itself into the man’s face, year by year.
After losing his family, he put on that mask. And he never took it off again.
“What is it that changed you?” Knox pressed. “What was it about this particular child?”
He was being impertinent, and he knew it. But that was what an advisor was for. Calypse was a hero, yes — but he was also human. He could break. He could make mistakes. Anticipating those possibilities and standing ready to catch the fall — that was Knox’s function.
A suffocating pause stretched between them.
Calypse had moved to the wall and now leaned against it, arms folded, his expression heavy with thought. He looked like a man carefully selecting the right words from a very complicated array.
At last, he exhaled.
“Nothing has changed.”
“Then why —”
“Saving that child. That was the only option left to me.”
“…Pardon?”
The only option left. Saving her.
Knox turned the words over slowly, parsing them — and then his eyes went narrow.
Which meant — if he had not saved the child —
“Your Grace!”
The meaning struck him a half-second too late. The color drained from Knox’s face.
Calypse, for his part, did not move. He had clearly lived with this for long enough that it no longer shook him. The crimson eyes that met Knox’s held nothing but a faint, familiar fatigue.
“I bled myself dry for this kingdom and came home with nothing but a medal to show for it. What reason would I have had to stay alive?”
“Is that why you asked me for the death tincture?”
Calypse closed his eyes.
“Draw your own conclusions.”
“You expect me to draw my own conclusions? Your Grace, as long as there is breath in my body, I will not — I swear on everything that I —”
“Ugh.”
This was precisely why he hadn’t wanted to say anything.
Knox could be, at times, more fiercely devoted to Calypse than Calypse was to himself. Which was equal parts touching and exhausting.
Knox’s furious, horrified tirade filled the room. Calypse looked deeply pained by all of it.
At last, Knox stopped. He took a long, ragged breath.
And arrived, inevitably, at the only conclusion available to him.
“…Then let me take charge of the child. Of Aisha.”
“……?”
Calypse, who had been pressing a theatrical finger in his ear to block out the noise, opened his eyes slowly.
Knox met his startled look and gave a single decisive nod.
He didn’t want to admit it. But he had to.
That child had saved the Duke.
“I’ll watch Aisha. I’ll determine for myself whether she has truly given up the spy work — or whether she is simply biding her time to betray you.”
If she was that important to the man, then she warranted investigation.
Was she genuinely the one who had saved him? Or was she quietly preparing to destroy him?
* * *
Aisha, knowing none of this, entered emergency mode.
I have to earn his trust. No matter what.
May’s words had clarified something she’d been vague about before.
Being adopted doesn’t mean it’s over. It’s just the beginning.
Calypse hadn’t adopted her out of fondness. It was closer to pity. And if even he — the only person who had shown her any warmth at all — was operating on pity rather than trust, then what did everyone else think of her?
She didn’t need to think hard to know.
Knox was sitting right there to remind her.
“Does food make a baby’s cheek puff out like a freshly baked roll? Or is that specific to this particular child?”
“……”
She was focused on her steak. A long finger reached over and poked her cheek anyway.
Again. He was watching her again.
No reaction. That’s the right answer.
She redirected her gaze pointedly away from his. Knox rested his chin on his hand and spoke in a perfectly flat tone.
“Or perhaps… it’s because she’s a spy.”
“Eat your meat!”
She snatched the fork from near her own mouth and rammed it into his instead.
— Which, unfortunately —
“Mm. Quite good.”
He received with complete composure. House Krost’s chief advisor, unfazed by a surprise fork-attack from a five-year-old. He was actually savoring it.
Don’t let your guard down. He’s watching for a weakness.
She had no idea why, but since that day, Knox had been following her every move, all day, every day.
Knox Ilias.
Calypse’s foremost confidant; second son of Marquess Ilias, a retainer house bound to House Krost since the beginning.
Long blue hair, combed neatly back into a ponytail. A monocle that sharpened his already-intellectual image; without it, his teal-green eyes were genuinely beautiful — like the shimmer of deep forest light over a sea breeze.
Looked at objectively, he was a remarkably handsome man.
Objectively, though. That was the caveat.
Because beneath the surface lurked a magical-creature obsessive, an extreme analyst with precisely zero emotional warmth, and an alleged adult who apparently had nothing better to do than torment a five-year-old former spy.
Apart from those qualities, quite handsome.
The reason he argued against Calypse executing me wasn’t pity — it was concern for House Krost’s public image. He’d said so himself.
Knox’s polished, impeccable external persona was entirely constructed. Built and maintained for the sake of House Krost alone.
In the original story, he had so little interest in people that I assumed he’d just drift away once the novelty wore off. I didn’t expect him to be this invested in me.
Having held the steak in his mouth for an unreasonable length of time, Knox finally swallowed.
And then —
“…Lady Aisha, you’re a sp—”
“Thunderman!”
“The young lady is a sp—”
“Spa therapy is my hobby!”
“…What is a Thunderman? And what is spa therapy?”
“They’re real things!”
This was how it had been going.
She kept having to do this, and she knew exactly why.
“Hm. For a five-year-old — even one trained as a spy — her crisis management is actually quite impressive.”
He wanted to see how she operated. How she held up under pressure.
The compliment was noted but unwelcome. The scrutiny, however, she could do without.
“You’re not so bad yourself. Impressive how you’ve managed to harass a five-year-old this long.”
“…Uncle?”
The familiar deep voice, just then.
She turned, and there stood a man the size of a small mountain.
“Come here, little one.”
“Yes! — Oh.”
She had been about to launch herself at him with her Frog Technique — and then —
He took you in out of pity. But trust? That would be too much to ask, when you were the one who lied first.
The truth hit her mid-leap. She stumbled to a stop.
“…Little one?”
He had noticed already. He always did.
Calypse had crossed the room before she could recover, and now he was crouched down to her eye level, knees folded, right in front of her chair.
His crimson gaze was level with hers. Steady.
His arms opened.
“……”
He was asking her to come to him.
“…Aisha.”
Even the low note in his voice — half confused, half something that sounded almost like hurt — had begun to soften.
No. I need to hold things together. If I don’t even make myself likable, with trust already this far gone —
She shook herself out of it, forced a bright grin onto her face, and called out in her most cheerful tone.
“Ahahaha, Uncle~!”
She exaggerated the performance just a fraction too much — gave him a single wink — and walked over in slightly stilted strides to press herself against his chest.
Pressed herself against it. Not quite the same as falling into it.
“……”
He looked down at her for a long moment. Then his gaze traveled up.
“Knox.”
“Yes.”
“On your knees.”
“…Pardon?”
