Sway, sway.
Beneath the arm of the man walking deeper into the secluded forest, Aisha’s pudgy little legs dangled and swung.
Behind him padded a kitten, its tail curling into a question mark as it swished through the air.
In truth, the one the kitten had been waiting for was neither the man called the King nor Duke Foss.
Its target was the narrow-eyed man who had been watching Aisha from the very beginning.
That one should do.
Murky brown eyes—clouded by a potion—bored into the man with the calculating focus of someone appraising a piece of goods.
The kitten had never known much about humans.
But it had learned, during the long days of captivity at Ahili Circus, that humans tended to live in packs.
And yet this man.
This narrow-eyed man.
The one who had followed them from the moment Aisha had climbed into the carriage with the kitten in her arms.
He carried no scent of other people. As though he had been born into this world for the singular purpose of dying quietly and without witness.
That’s exactly why he seemed like a good option. Worth following.
But why was he now acknowledging Aisha as if he knew her?
In truth, the kitten had been timing its moment ever since Aisha took it into the garden. The plan had been simple: the instant Aisha let her guard down, it would dart—snap—straight toward the man.
Aisha ruined everything.
The kitten slid a sullen sideways glance in her direction.
She came chasing after me, and now he knows I was watching.
Hmph.
Suddenly, the kitten felt quite put out with Aisha. If she hadn’t followed, the whole thing would have been settled by now.
Still—was this man actually acquainted with Aisha? And where on earth was he taking her?
If there was a connection between them, then as much as it pained the kitten, it would have to wait and observe.
Humans were social creatures, after all. Allegedly, they grew sad when someone connected to them died.
So I’ll wait a little.
There was the faint itch of impatience, but the kitten was, at heart, a generous creature.
If I hold back and don’t kill him, maybe he’ll give me something nice. Like that doctor did.
Fwump—
The kitten folded its legs quietly into a loaf position and hummed a wordless tune to itself.
I am a good cat.
Just then.
“This should be far enough. No one around.”
The man glanced about, then set Aisha down and began binding her hands with rope.
The rope was rough even to look at, and as the coarse fibers scraped against the child’s delicate wrists, Aisha—who had appeared to be asleep—furrowed her brow.
“…!”
The kitten’s eyes went wide as it watched, but the man paid it no mind and bound her feet as well.
That rope. I’ve seen it before—at Ahili Circus.
The kind that stung on contact, that scraped the skin raw if it so much as grazed you. The kitten remembered the feeling clearly.
That particular type of rope had been used at the circus to muzzle the Creatures that refused to behave.
Isn’t that what they use to punish Creatures?
The kitten tilted its head from its loafing position.
If he knows Aisha, why is he hurting her? If she dies from this, how is she supposed to answer my questions?
“Hey—”
And then the man did something worse.
“Wake up, little spy. Hey—!”
He brought his large, graceless palm down against Aisha’s cheek with a sharp crack.
“Why has someone who’s supposed to be in the North come all the way to the capital? You even ignored the secret message I sent and eavesdropped on the Duke’s conversation?”
Crack. Crack.
The child’s cheeks, white as flour, began to flush a deepening red.
At the sight of it, the kitten’s eyes narrowed to slivers.
Then, slowly, it rose to its feet.
Now things were clear.
This man was nothing like the one Aisha called the doctor.
He was more like the circus workers at Ahili—the ones who had thrown it into a cage and left it to starve.
In that case—
“Are you actually asleep?”
The man’s jaw tightened, his raised palm already descending with force, when—
“Ugh.”
Something white launched itself upward and sank its teeth into the man’s throat.
“Gkkh—hak—!”
A burning, numbing pain spread through the man’s neck as though venom itself had flooded his veins. He opened his mouth to scream, but his body had already turned to stone. He toppled backward, rigid and silent.
“Nyaaa—”
The kitten’s satisfied cry rang out like a small, pleased song.
Quiet settled over the deep forest.
The body of the man was dragged through the undergrowth and disappeared among the vines.
Meanwhile.
“…Ngh.”
Every inch of her body prickled and stung.
It felt as if bare, raw skin was being grazed by the sharp edges of leaves. As consciousness slowly surfaced and sensation returned, her right cheek ignited—a deep, throbbing burn, like a freshly pulled wisdom tooth.
What happened? I followed the baby… I overheard the King and Duke Foss talking, and then…
Everything after that had been deleted.
Don’t tell me—kidnapped?
The shock of it jolted her awake. Aisha pried open her eyelids.
“…?”
At first, she didn’t register them as eyes at all.
Amethysts, she thought, confused. Why is there a jewel right in front of my face?
That brief, bewildered thought had barely formed when—
“Why did you save me?”
“…What?”
A calm, unhurried voice pressed its way into her ears.
“I asked why you saved me.”
The jewel was talking. The jewel was talking to her.
Flustered, Aisha squeezed her eyes shut and forced them back open.
This time, she saw them properly: a pair of violet irises, clear and deep, set in sharp, distinct eyes that gazed down at her with a gaze full of curiosity.
…Who is this?
White hair falling across his forehead. Pale, fine-textured skin.
If someone were ever asked to paint the very image of untouched innocence, this boy might well be the one who appeared in their mind—
That was the thought she would have had. If not for the blood smeared at the corner of his mouth.
“…Blood?!”
Aisha startled and tried to scramble backward, but her body refused to move. Her hands and feet were still bound.
Don’t tell me he’s the one who did this.
“…You.”
She narrowed her eyes into suspicious triangles and glared up at him, ready to demand an explanation—but then:
“Oh, this?”
Whatever her expression conveyed, he interpreted it in his own way.
The boy made a disgruntled face and swiped at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand in a careless, indifferent gesture.
“I drank a little to shift into human form. It tasted bad.”
He murmured it to himself like it was nothing—he’d drunk blood, he said.
“…You drank blood?”
“I needed to so I could talk to you.”
He said these absurd things with complete composure, as though mildly offended that she’d even thought to ask.
Strange boy.
Aisha’s mouth dropped into a baffled triangle, trembling slightly.
…Were there vampires in the original world of the novel?
She didn’t think so. If there had been, surely one would have appeared as a minor character somewhere.
Her eyes were spinning with bewilderment when—
“Anyway. Answer quickly. Why did you save me?”
“…Huh?”
“I asked why you saved me.”
The boy—still in the middle of scrubbing the blood from his face—abruptly stepped closer to her.
“Why did you save me?”
Is this really the right expression for a blood-smeared face?
Aisha blinked at him, blank as a button.
“I didn’t save you.”
“Yes, you did. At Ahili Circus.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
Absolute certainty.
“…I don’t think so.”
She shook her head, side to side.
He knows about Ahili Circus, so he must have been there. But I have no memory of ever seeing this boy before.
“I think you have me confused with someone else. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you.”
At that, the mysterious violet eyes narrowed to thin, suspicious lines.
“I went to all the trouble of saving you just to get an answer.”
His tone made it perfectly obvious he didn’t believe a word she’d said.
After staring her down for what felt like a long time—hands on hips—he gave a decisive nod, as though he had made up his mind.
“If you have no intention of answering, then there’s no reason left for me to have kept you alive.”
And then, with a perfectly indifferent expression, he opened his mouth wide.
“I’ll just have to eat you. Ahhh—”
“Aaaaah!”
As those neatly formed lips parted, a row of close-set teeth was revealed—and among them, pointed, gleaming canines.
He was insane. He was completely insane!
Aisha writhed and squirmed against her bindings like a caterpillar before blurting out the first words that came to her:
“I—I get it! I’ll answer! I’ll answer!”
The mouth that had been stretched open promptly closed.
Right. She didn’t know who this boy was, but one thing was now abundantly clear: he was completely unhinged.
Which meant—
“Untie the rope and I’ll answer.”
Her body needed to be free first.
“You’ll answer if I untie the rope?”
“Yes. It hurts with the rope on, and I can’t think properly.”
She squirmed and winced with exaggerated suffering, and the blank violet eyes flickered.
“…Hurting makes it hard to answer.”
And then, with sudden, complete compliance, he dropped to his knees and began working at the knots.
You sweet little fool. Thank goodness you’re not very bright.
“Hehe. Thank you.”
The second that rope comes off, you’re done for.
Aisha curled a sly, catlike smile at the corner of her mouth.
She kept her eyes fixed on him as he worked at the rope—patient, deliberate, unwavering—and waited.
