No Affinity. No Qualifications.
“The direct-line daughter of House Krost,” Knox repeated.
“The — the direct line? He found her? That’s — no one told me —”
The Marquess nearly lurched backward at the word daughter. He fumbled to compose himself, scratching at his jaw a few times.
“Ah. So you’re the Duke’s child, then.”
He had heard about the adoption after all.
He tilted his head toward Aisha and curved his lips into something unpleasant.
“Yes, yes. It’s been five years since the Duke lost his family. He must have been lonely, poor man…”
He stepped closer and crouched down to her level.
“Tell me, little one. Your Affinity?”
Up close, the Marquess’s face had more wrinkles than it had seemed from a distance. He looked, she decided, like an avaricious monkey with a long nose.
Ugh.
She leaned back slightly.
“None.”
“Ha! None, you say. No Affinity, no particular ability — a perfectly ordinary little nothing, aren’t you? Ha ha ha!”
His laugh bounced off the high ceiling, filling the corridor. The faces of everyone present tightened — but no one spoke.
Which was, of course, the natural outcome. She was an unrecognized foundling; he was the father of the Affinity bearer.
“Want to see mine?”
Tex had perked up at the mention of the Affinity and swaggered forward, one shoulder raised.
She was about to shake her head when —
CRACK — !
“Eek!”
“Oh — oh!”
The maids clapped their hands over their ears and screamed. A massive icicle had erupted in the middle of the corridor with a sound like the world splitting open.
If Aisha hadn’t startled backward and plastered herself to Knox’s leg like a barnacle, it would have taken her eye out.
“That’s my Affinity,” Tex announced, crouching slightly to meet her shorter eyeline, looking pleased with the screaming.
“Not bad, right? You’re House Krost too, so — if I become heir, I’ll let you be my little sister.”
“No,” Aisha said. “You’re disqualified.”
“…What?”
“Do you know why House Krost earned the people’s respect?”
Tex’s expression soured at the unexpected quiz.
“Because they have the Ice Affinity?”
“Wrong. Because they used the Ice Affinity to protect people. That’s why they were respected.”
She pointed directly at him.
“But you just threatened the people around you with it. That disqualifies you as heir.”
“……”
The corridor went silent.
Marquess Lilys, who had been wearing his smug grin like an accessory. The startled maids. Knox, who had been watching with studied neutrality.
“…Who do you think you are!”
Tex, who had been stunned into stillness for one unguarded second, lunged for her collar —
“This is the direct-line daughter of House Krost.”
A large hand came between them.
“Any threatening action toward the direct-line Lady will compel us to take formal measures, regardless of House Lilys’s standing.”
Knox’s voice was flat and cold as stone. His pale eyes met the Marquess’s over Tex’s shoulder.
She might be a foundling. But she was also Calypse’s officially recognized daughter. The Marquess knew better than to push this further.
“Tex. We’re leaving.”
“But, Father —”
“Now.”
Any scene that continued here would only become fodder for gossip. The Marquess understood that much. He seized Tex’s arm with a sharp jerk and turned to go — but not before fixing Knox with one last, parting look.
“…Knox.”
“Yes.”
“A newly adopted orphan talking like this — you’ve been doing excellent work conditioning her, I’ll give you that.” A ringed finger jabbed at Knox’s chest. “If my Tex becomes heir and takes charge of this household, I’ll make sure your educational philosophy gets a proper correction too.”
Knox met the man’s gaze without so much as blinking.
“I look forward to that conversation, my lord.”
“…Insufferable…”
There was nothing more Marquess Lilys could do. He glared at Knox, at the maids, finally at Aisha — and then dragged Tex out of the castle.
The moment they were gone —
“…Why does he keep coming here anyway?”
“No idea. He treats this place like his own house.”
“Ugh, every visit gives me a headache.”
“But wait — does this mean Tex ends up becoming heir in the end?”
“The succession trial is when His Grace returns from the clearing — he’ll announce something then, I’d imagine…”
“But Lady Aisha doesn’t have the Ice Affinity either, does she?”
Sighs and murmured conversation drifted from every corner of the corridor.
Aisha rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
Now she understood. This was the real reason Knox had tried to keep her out — the real shape of the problem.
Adopted or not, without the Ice Affinity, Tex still becomes heir regardless.
She had been thinking about whether to try finding the duke’s sons as an alternative — but if they too had vanished from the original story’s trajectory, the same problem would repeat itself. Worse, it would shatter whatever thin trust Calypse had extended her.
I need to find the sons without telling anyone I’m looking for them.
No obvious solution came to mind. She turned the problem over, frowning —
And caught Knox’s back as he walked away, shoulders carrying something unspoken.
She was still looking after him when something caught the light at her feet.
“Hm?”
Something glinting on the floor.
She bent to look — a gold fountain pen.
Marquess Lilys’s?
He must have dropped it when he grabbed Tex. She picked it up and checked the engraving on the clip.
Not Lilys.
Roos.
“Roos? A nickname for Lilys?”
Not unheard of. Nobles often had signet pieces engraved with personal sobriquets rather than their full names.
Still — she turned the pen over in her fingers, and quite suddenly:
“Oh.”
A thought arrived, clean and bright.
If she couldn’t go to them first —
…she could make them come to her.
Like this pen. She just had to make herself interesting enough that they couldn’t help but wonder.
* * *
A few days later.
“Will you be going to see Lady Aisha? Should I prepare something for tea?”
The castle, still recovering from the chaos of the Marquess’s visit, was quietly finding its footing again. Knox, however, had not recovered his. His expression remained as locked as it had been since that day.
He shook his head at the maid’s question.
“No. I’d like some time alone this evening.”
In truth, Knox’s mood had been at a low point ever since.
A cadet branch waltzing into the Duke’s own castle without permission.
He had known about Marquess Lilys’s ambitions for the succession. He hadn’t anticipated the man would go so far as to appear unannounced at the castle itself.
It would never have happened had Calypse been present. And if not Calypse, then at least —
If only the young lords were still here…
Knox shook his head. Such thinking was useless.
“Please tell Lady Aisha as well — I’ll be in my private study until dinner. Tell her to stay in her room and rest.”
“Of course. I’ll let her know.”
They parted, and Knox walked in the direction of his study — then, the moment May was out of sight, changed course entirely.
I can’t just sit and brood. I have to do something.
The Marquess situation was, regrettably, beyond his direct reach to fix. But Aisha —
Investigating the truth behind that little spy is something I can do right now.
He made his way outside the castle walls and positioned himself with a clear view of one particular window.
Aisha’s bedroom window.
But you just threatened the people around you with it. That disqualifies you as heir.
The child’s words surfaced unbidden. He paused.
He had to admit — just for that moment — she had felt genuinely like a duke’s daughter.
More than Tex, certainly. He had thought, with something approaching sincerity, that he would rather see Aisha take the position than that insufferable boy.
“…No.”
He pushed the thought down hard.
“It could be an act.”
His monocle glinted in the fading light, cold and precise.
There was a reason the profession of deceiving people — extracting information from them while smiling — had a name at all. Because it required systematic training. The very best spies were beautiful. The most effective ones were charming. And a child who had spent her earliest years in that system?
Her round little face? Spies tended to have agreeable appearances — it was practically a job requirement.
Her habit of babbling cheerfully about House Foss as though it were harmless gossip? A technique for disarming suspicion.
The way her cheeks puffed out adorably when she ate? Spies could manage their own facial expressions with their eyes closed.
I thought following her closely would yield something, but it’s only kept her from doing anything at all.
He’d spent twenty-four hours a day glued to her side, and for what? Any operative worth the title would simply hold still until the surveillance relaxed.
Giving her this window of solitude might draw out her true intentions.
He had passed word through May; by now, Aisha would know she was unwatched. Whatever she chose to do alone in that bedroom —
If she was drafting a report to send to House Foss, that would be all the pretext he needed to remove her from the castle for good.
“…What a thing for a man of my standing to be reduced to,” he murmured. “Scaling castle walls like a common thief.”
He allowed himself one moment to think of his professional legacy.
Youngest chief advisor in the history of House Krost.
First certified specialist in magical creature management.
Chairman of MCLA (Magical Creatures Love Association — for those who wished to appreciate them at safe distances).
But it has to be done.
He adjusted his monocle, steeled himself, and reached up to grip the first stone of the wall.
