It felt like the end of a long, deeply satisfying sleep.
Consciousness had been threading back toward the surface slowly, steadily, cutting through the dark waters of unconsciousness.
Click.
The pale fingers folded neatly on the blanket twitched.
With the return of sensation in her fingers came sound — voices filtering in from nearby.
“…Almost time…”
“…Royal magic, perhaps…”
What on earth are they discussing so earnestly?
I still wanted to sleep.
Just a little longer.
I was trying to let the voices carry me back under when —
“I’m not letting her go!”
“Eeeek!”
A voice sharp enough to strip paint off the walls slammed my eyes wide open.
“Wh — where—”
Where am I? Who am I?
Blinking wide-eyed at the absolute cliché unfolding in my head, I swiveled in every direction like a meerkat —
“…Aisha?”
“Lucas?! …Why are you crying?”
The boy who met my gaze — eyes red, face puffy from what appeared to have been an extended crying session — stood up from his chair, dazed.
“…Aisha.”
“Uncle?”
The Duke stood beside him, the hollows under his eyes dark and deep, like someone who hadn’t slept in days.
Plop.
“Good heavens. Young Lady, you were clearly—”
And an unfamiliar elderly man, who had apparently just dropped whatever he was holding.
“What — why is everyone looking like that?”
What in the world had happened here?
“Aisha!”
Lucas threw himself forward and wrapped his arms around me, weeping at full volume.
“Wait, she’s still a patient — Lucas!”
“I must check her pulse — I need to check — this is a miracle!”
“Aaah!”
Then Lucas, then the Duke, then the old man — all three of them converged on the bed at once. I screamed in genuine alarm.
What is happening?!
________________________________________
The one who introduced himself as the physician — Delta — had shaken his head, marveling aloud.
‘Physically, she’s completely healthy. The bruising is still there, but otherwise — this is a miracle, pure and simple.’
‘Aisha!’
Lucas had crashed into me again. The Duke had not stopped him this time — he had stood watching me, and brought one hand up to cover his face, and his eyes had been unmistakably bright.
That had been a few days ago now.
Since then, I had been confined to the physician’s room to recover.
I hadn’t learned until afterward what had actually happened while I was unconscious — that I had died, and somehow come back.
In all honesty, my body felt so perfectly fine that I’d questioned whether recovery care was even necessary.
‘Necessary. Even if the body is healthy, you need at least a week of full rest.’
Delta had glanced meaningfully toward the door as he said it, sweating slightly. Through that door: Calypse and Lucas, both radiating the kind of energy that made a room feel pressurized.
‘Then I’ll recover right here!’
‘Oh — th-thank goodness — I mean. Of course, of course you should!’
I had been completely sincere in my answer, and Delta had thanked me with the emotion of a man who had narrowly escaped something terrible.
In any case — apparently I was a hero now, not just a spy. How many lives had I managed to save in one afternoon.
Delta’s verdict was that my recovery defied medical explanation. He had no framework for it.
My theory was: protagonist immunity.
I poked at various parts of myself experimentally, but found nothing wrong.
I’m in peak condition.
There was the matter of the bruise still on my head from the blunt weapon — apparently the cause of death, according to Delta — but it didn’t hurt at all.
How was this possible?
Some kind of blessing that came with transmigration?
I’ll figure it out properly later.
For now, there was something else weighing on me.
Right at the beginning — when the circus employees had knocked me unconscious — before the nightmare properly started.
“You went to the estate and brought back something rather interesting, didn’t you.”
The dream had had no setting. No face. Just darkness, and a shadow, and the gleam of unsettling teeth.
“…What was that memory?”
I had inhabited Aisha’s mind from before she had any real memories — and nothing like that had happened to her.
A flashbulb image, sharp as a photograph. And the moment I remembered it, my whole body prickled with something cold and wrong.
I was still turning it over when —
Bang.
“Dandelion!”
The door flew open without a knock.
Lucas, eyes wide as a startled rabbit, came running in — so fast that the flowers clutched in his hand were shedding petals across the floor behind him.
“Lucas?”
He stopped in front of me, and his face went through a rapid series of expressions.
“You — I heard from Dad — you got adopted here?!”
Ah. So that’s what the sprinting was about.
I could hardly blame him. I’d have been stunned too, if I’d come home after five years and found out there was a new sibling installed.
I should have told him at the circus. Now I felt a little guilty.
“Yeah. That’s what happened. You must have been surprised — I’m sorry I didn’t tell you first—”
“Then that makes you my little sister, doesn’t it?!”
He cut me off mid-sentence with a shout.
His whole face was lit up. I nodded quickly.
“Yes!”
“Th-then! You’re not allowed to call me ‘Young Lord’ anymore!”
“What?”
His eyes had taken on a particular quality — hopeful, waiting for something.
What is he waiting for?
I narrowed my eyes and pressed a finger to my chin, puzzling it out — then looked down at his hands.
The bouquet, now missing several petals, was still clutched there.
“Wow, you picked flowers for me? That’s so sweet, thank you! They’re beautiful!”
“…Not that.”
Lucas immediately corrected me.
“Then what?”
“I — just—”
He started to say something, and the tips of his ears went red.
“…call me that.”
“Call you what?”
“Call me big brother!”
The force of it turned his whole face scarlet.
Flustered and huffing, he shoved the flowers into the nearest vase without any particular care.
And then felt the need to explain himself at length, unprompted.
“From now on I’m not letting anyone bother you! If anything happens, you call me! That’s why I’m telling you this!”
Oh, you prickly little thing. All of this was just your very roundabout way of being protective, wasn’t it.
“Got it, big brother Lucas. Thank you.”
I gave him the exact words he wanted, and the back of his neck promptly ignited.
“Hmph. Right. I’m the big brother.”
“Indeed.”
“You’re the little sister. We’re siblings. Family.” Ahem!
He was savoring this on repeat, and his mouth was doing a very suspicious thing — softening at the corners into something very close to a smile. He smothered it with another round of throat-clearing.
Then he pulled an upright chair close to my bedside and sat, flipping open a small sketchbook to show me.
“What’s this?”
“My schedule. There’s already a lot to do now that I’m back at the estate. I may only be eight, but I’m a Krost heir.”
“Oh, how impressive!”
He had clearly come here partly to show off. It was endearing in the way that only eight-year-olds being very serious about their personal schedules can be.
The sketchbook was open to a circular daily plan drawn neatly in blue crayon.
“Tell me your whole day!”
“Obviously.”
He lifted his chin, apparently gratified by my enthusiasm, and pointed at midday with a decisive finger.
“Lunch is at twelve-thirty. I need to recover what I spent in the morning and prepare for the afternoon, so they usually give a good amount — bread and meat, mostly. I’m planning to come to your room at this time every day for now, so be ready—”
I stared at him, startled.
“We’re eating together?”
“Of course. We’re family, aren’t we.”
“Oh…”
“And dinner — dinner is at six-thirty. It varies, but it’s usually something lighter. Meat and vegetables.”
He leaned in, lowering his voice as though about to reveal a state secret.
“But the important part is next.”
“Hmm.”
The sudden drop in register caught me off guard. My mouth pulled into a small, anticipatory triangle.
What could it be? Rigorous training? Some initiation ceremony for being recognized as a direct heir?
I waited, braced for something momentous — and he leaned even closer and whispered:
“Between lunch and dinner—”
“Yes?”
“…There is also a dessert hour.”
“Des-sert…”
“Dessert?”
I asked again, certain I’d misheard. His heroic eyebrows gathered even more firmly in confirmation.
“Yes. And you absolutely cannot miss it. The strawberry cake is incredible.”
“…”
Lucas might be a little bit of an idiot.
I was beginning to suspect this seriously for the first time.
“All right, that’s enough out of you. Step outside for a moment.”
The door had opened quietly, and a very large man stepped through. There was the faint smell of cold air clinging to him — he must have just come in from outside.
The Duke.
“Uncle!”
“Kiddo.”
He smiled, faint and warm, and the cheerfulness that had been filling the room only a moment ago drained out of Lucas’s face like water from a cup.
“The presentation isn’t done.”
“It is done. You agreed to thirty minutes and it’s been over an hour. I’ve been generous.”
“Then be more generous.”
Calypse fixed Lucas — his own face, small and stubborn, looking back at him — with a long-suffering look, and then laughed softly.
“The chef made strawberry cake. Especially for you.”
“…What?”
“You’re not going to eat it?”
CLANG.
Something large had toppled over somewhere in Lucas’s internal architecture.
A crisis of cosmic proportions: little sister, or strawberry cake.
This is exactly the kind of moment that calls for a magnanimous younger sibling.
To be honest, Lucas — you are quite loud.
I waved a cheerful hand.
“Go on, big brother.”
“…Big brother?”
The Duke went still.
“He’s my actual big brother, so…” I trailed off, glancing up. “What about you? You’re not ‘dad’ — you’re ‘uncle’?”
“…Hm.”
An unexpected development.
The splatter from this had landed somewhere no one had anticipated.
