Events moved quickly after that.
Dozens of Krost knights subdued the remaining Circus staff.
The dangerous Creatures were swiftly neutralized. The animals locked in iron cages were — on grounds of basic human decency — released back to the wild.
The following morning.
“His Grace has arrived at the main gate. Everyone straighten up. Look sharp.”
The brisk sound of boot heels rang across the entrance of the Krost estate.
Head Maid Mai stood at the very front of a line of neatly arranged maids and servants, the head butler Brad at her side, ready to receive the Duke.
Beside them stood the estate’s private physician, Delta.
[Have the physician on standby.]
A day earlier, an urgent message had come — no explanation, just those instructions.
“Could he be injured from the suppression? That’s never happened before…”
Brad fretted quietly. But Mai was still with her own thoughts.
Instinct told her it wasn’t an injury. Her master was not that fragile.
What she was thinking about was the child who had disappeared yesterday.
Knox had walked out through the front door looking furious, Aisha tucked under his arm, and he had not returned.
Looking at his retreating back, she had found herself thinking about their last exchange.
“Knox is openly hostile toward Aisha.”
“Naturally. Is there any reason to be otherwise?”
No reason. That had been Mai’s position as well.
A commoner orphan who had talked her way into the estate claiming to know the whereabouts of the young lady. Eaten the fine food. Worn the fine clothes. And when her lie was exposed, she had run.
Mai had not been the only one searching for the missing children all these years. She had been there when they were born. She had cared for them. She had wanted nothing more.
And what had Aisha done?
Lied. Then had the audacity to get herself officially adopted and take the title of young lady.
Knox took her somewhere, which means she must have done something wrong.
Her hands, folded at her waist, curled inward.
Calypse being called back urgently while on a suppression mission — it had to be related.
She was still pondering this when —
“Gates opening.”
The gatekeeper’s voice, and then the great doors swung wide on both sides.
Three figures emerged between them.
Three?
Between Knox and Calypse walked a boy.
A boy who appeared to be around eight — wearing a rough robe.
The staff stirred in confused murmurs; then bowed as one. Calypse accepted it with a brief nod, and announced:
“We have found Lucas Krost. Our direct heir.”
“……!”
The sound that tried to escape Mai’s throat barely stopped itself.
Brad made a faint, strangled sound beside her.
“Young Lord Lucas?”
“God above. We last saw him as an infant—”
“The young lord has — has truly come back—”
The shadows along the wall gave up their composure, leaking whispers they couldn’t contain.
“Young lord — Young Lord!”
Mai couldn’t hold back. She crossed the distance and fell to both knees before the small boy.
He was too thin. Far too thin.
His black hair — dark like Calypse’s — was lank and tangled with grime. The robe was thick with dust.
“Young Lord, I am Mai. Do you remem—”
“Where is the physician?!”
But Mai’s grief was cut short by the boy’s sharp cry.
She half-stumbled to her feet as Delta rushed forward.
“H-here, Young Lord!”
“Save this child. Right now! She’s not breathing!”
Mai’s gaze dropped.
In the boy’s arms was a smaller child.
Eyes closed. Still.
…Aisha?
Mai’s pupils dilated.
But before she could make sense of it, Lucas — straining against the weight but refusing to give her up — walked past, already moving down the corridor.
Calypse followed, urgent and close behind.
“Delta. To the physician’s room, immediately. Check Aisha’s condition. Her breathing is shallow — get me a precise assessment.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The two men disappeared around the corner with the physician in tow before anyone could say a word.
“……?”
Mai stood in the entrance, expression blank with confusion.
A five-year reunion with the young lord — and it ended like this.
And he wanted Aisha saved.
What on earth had that child done now? Why did she keep dragging the people of this estate back in her wake?
Sigh.
At least the young lord was home.
She needed to understand the situation before she could do anything useful.
“Knox. Could I ask what happened?”
She smoothed her apron and approached Knox, who stood alone.
He looked, she noticed, deeply uncomfortable.
“Aisha found Young Lord Lucas.”
“…Pardon?”
Who found whom?
“Yes. It’s true. And—”
Something was clearly wrong with Knox’s mood.
“Lady Aisha collapsed after fighting the kidnappers — to protect Young Lord Lucas.”
“…Who fought on behalf of whom…?”
Mai’s eyes went round.
Knox nodded as though he fully understood her disbelief.
“Yes. An unfortunate situation. I owe Lady Aisha a very sincere apology for misjudging her — and I find myself at a complete loss for words.”
“…I’m finding myself in a similar position.”
Mai agreed, quietly and a little distantly.
The memory of the sharp things she’d said to Aisha surfaced with unwelcome clarity.
What had happened exactly? How had a child of five —
“He took you in out of pity, yes. But he doesn’t trust you. You were the one who lied first, my lady.”
…Could it have been her words?
It seemed too dramatic — but if Aisha had needed to prove herself badly enough to do something that reckless, there had to be a reason.
And that reason, as Mai turned it over, grew uncomfortably plausible.
A child that age — for all her articulate speech and steady footsteps — was still a very small, very young thing.
She had to stand on her toes and strain just to open the drawer where the tea bags were kept.
She was small enough to fit entirely within someone’s arms — far smaller than even young Lucas.
“……”
The guilt sat heavily behind her eyes. She had understood too late.
Aisha had simply been too young an age to deserve her resentment.
________________________________________
That same moment.
“I am deeply, profoundly sorry. I don’t know what to say…”
“……”
“Th-the truth is — she appeared to be in this condition already when Young Lord Lucas carried her in.”
Delta shifted from foot to foot before the expressionless faces of Calypse and Lucas, stumbling over his explanation.
She has passed.
Since those words, neither of them had managed to blink.
“Aisha — please. Open your eyes.”
“……”
“The kitten you wanted saved is alive! The kitten made it! You have to wake up!”
Lucas begged, sobs tearing themselves out of him, calling Aisha’s name again and again.
The girl gave no answer. She lay utterly still.
Delta, in the crackling silence, could barely breathe. He kept his head bowed and focused on reading the Duke’s condition as best he could from the corner of his eye.
The Duke had not wept. He had not raised his voice, or cursed, or drawn a breath of visible despair.
In a room where every clock seemed to tick at its own separate speed, his alone had stopped.
________________________________________
That night. In the small hours when the estate slept.
Aisha lay in her own bed, alone.
At Calypse’s insistence, the room had been sealed with cold — the Ice Affinity holding the temperature at something close to freezing.
Until I can accept this. Give me that much.
And in the deep quiet, a figure approached the bedside.
“So you’ve died.”
The boy had been born alone — no one to enter his world, no one to disturb the crystalline stillness of it.
His world had always been transparent, untouched. Perfectly still.
And then a small foot stepped into it.
And like a stone dropped into a still pond, the world around him had shifted.
The one who had made that ripple now lay before him, drained of life.
“You died.”
Otherworldly eyes.
White hair, fine as feathers, framing a clean brow.
The mysterious-looking boy repeated himself a third time, wearing an expression that had no name.
So she’s dead. Well, the dead die.
He had always thought that. Watching animals die in their iron cages. Watching Creatures be cut down by the handlers.
He had grown, somewhere along the way, entirely detached from the concept of death.
But —
“I wanted to ask why you saved me.”
He turned his gaze to the window, and closed his eyes.
In all his life, no one had ever looked at him like that.
People looked at him and saw bad luck to be avoided, or a commodity to be priced. One or the other, without fail.
But that girl —
“…Why did she have that look in her eyes?”
Like she’d been struck. Like something had knocked her completely out of herself.
And after that, she’d asked him to save her.
Did she even know what he was?
Well. Because of her, he’d gotten out.
“And now you’re dead.”
This feels unresolved. Questions I never got to ask.
Idiot.
The boy, vaguely sulking now, crossed his arms and dropped to sit on the floor.
He thought about it — he couldn’t help himself.
He wanted to know badly enough to be willing to bring her back if that’s what it took.
If satisfying his curiosity required giving something of himself — he could spare that much.
“So.”
His decision made, he rose and stamped one foot firmly against the floor.
“Live a little longer.”
Hmmm—
Beneath his feet, a tremendous pulse of energy rippled outward through the floor.
The clear, still world cracked open.
A deep purple — the same shade as his eyes — bled into reality through the fractures, wrapping itself around everything.
“I’ll see you later.”
The line of his mouth — flat and unreadable until now — curved, just barely, at one corner.
After the boy disappeared, the night stretched on.
And when it finally ended, morning came to Aisha’s world.
________________________________________
