At that very hour—in Aisha’s bedroom.
“Mmm~”
The little ball of fluff, who had been curled up contentedly in the blankets carrying Aisha’s scent, hummed with sleepy satisfaction.
Lately, Kail found that the moment daytime arrived, sleep hit him like a heavy hand pressing him down. Especially after he had drunk the blood of the occasional spy—the drowsiness became nearly impossible to fight.
Like a child going through a growth spurt.
“Hrmnya.”
Even in his sleep, his bottom worked industriously to burrow deeper toward Aisha’s warmth.
But—
“……?”
Aisha’s warmth was gone. There should have been the heat of her body wrapped around him—but there wasn’t.
“?”
Unmoored by the lukewarm air, his eyes opened, and he looked around.
This was Aisha’s bedroom. But the bedroom’s owner was nowhere to be found.
Aisha?
The little ball of fluff stretched his front paws out, yawned wide, and shook his head side to side.
Finishing his rough approximation of a cat’s morning wash, he hopped off the bed and checked underneath—but nothing.
She’s not here either.
Strange. She’s been here every single time lately.
The permission he’d received from that tall man seemed to have ensured that much at least.
Kail was a homebody at heart. It was only natural for him to be in his home—her arms.
“Mew? (Aisha?)”
He pressed his nose to the floor and sniffed carefully—her scent ran like a trail of faint footprints, threading away from the estate and out into the world beyond.
He followed without debate.
What was lost should be found. That was simply how things were.
________________________________________
This place appeared, on the surface, to be a somewhat worn-down row of ordinary shops—but anyone who knew better would recognise it as one of the more active black market districts in the region. Known in certain circles as the Shadow Alley.
The people visible in the street were either wearing cloaks, or—
“Hey, little one—looks like you’ve taken a wrong turn.”
“Yes, probably.”
“If you’re lost and looking for your parents, why don’t you come with this nice gentleman—”
—were the sort of people who committed crimes right out in the open.
“Receive the needle of justice.”
“…What?”
Pfft—
I shot the bald man in the forehead. He gave a full-body shudder and slumped to the ground.
This was a lawless district. Which was precisely why it made comfortable lodgings for House Foss’s operatives.
Jingle—
I pushed open the door to a worn shop bearing the sign Perkus Bookshop.
“Welcome right in… oh, hey—kid?”
The voice that had started to drawl a greeting out of habit cut off, and a man rose from his seat.
A man with a deep scar running across one eye. The spy, Dolly.
“You get adopted by a fancy noble house and you’re still walking around dressed like a beggar?”
Could he keep his voice down. He was a spy, for goodness’ sake.
I glanced around and dropped my voice low.
“Is it alright to greet me so openly like this?”
“Why. Now that you’re a high noble’s daughter, am I an embarrassment to be seen with?”
“No, that’s not what I—!”
Being fellow spies didn’t mean they were close.
As I’d seen even with Dorothy, spies generally didn’t contact each other except when joint operations or necessity demanded it—and for the most part, they regarded each other with envy and suspicion.
Something to do with growing up training in an environment built entirely around competition.
The man opened a newspaper and asked idly.
“You haven’t seen that guy around, have you?”
“Which one?”
“Goes by Rater.”
The man drew his eyes into slitted lines.
“Always walking around with eyes like this—narrow little slits.”
Slitted eyes?
…That rang a bell.
Something came back to me, faintly.
During the heir selection trial, when Marquis Lilith had used the potion to send Creatures into a frenzy—
There had been a mysterious man watching everything from a distance. The one with the slitted eyes.
I mentioned it to Dolly quickly.
“I think I saw him during the heir selection trial—”
“Same here. But not once since then.”
Oh.
“I haven’t seen him since then either.”
“Is that so?”
A short silence followed.
When a spy whose face you know suddenly disappears, there are only two possibilities. Dead. Or near it.
Hmm. Well, this is awkward.
Not that I’d come for small talk anyway.
I rose onto my toes and planted one hand on the counter.
“Anyway—the berserk potion. You sell it here, don’t you?”
“Looking for more? Recently someone came in and took a huge quantity—said something about spreading it across the end of the world. Did you make a profit?”
I’m here because I need to clean up that mess, thank you.
I had a strong urge to flick this man on the forehead.
“The profit wasn’t great. So I need more.”
“See that bookshelf over there—red spine. Press it and go through the door.”
Without looking up from his newspaper, the man gestured vaguely in the direction of the shelves.
For someone running an illegal pharmaceutical operation, his security was laughably casual. But at least he hadn’t suspected me.
“Right.”
So I stepped in front of the shelves and found the red spine tucked among the countless books, and pressed it—grrrm—
The floor vibrated deeply as the gap between two shelves swung open, revealing a hidden room beyond.
Stepping inside, the temperature plummeted—like walking into a cold cellar.
Wooden shelving lined the walls like a pantry, displaying row after row of various substances, each sealed behind a glass panel that prevented careless handling.
These were the true inventory of Perkus Bookshop.
I padded diligently around the room, scanning the shelves, until I found a potion that matched the colour of the one I’d seen at the heir trials.
“Found it. The Berserk Amplifier.”
I rose onto my toes and tapped the glass panel lightly—it opened automatically.
This is what caused a section of the ice wall to collapse.
Even thinking about it made me shiver.
Brrrr—
My cheeks quivered with it.
He said he needed a large quantity—I’ll just take everything that’s here.
And then—
“What’s this?”
I’d been trying to reach for only the Berserk Amplifier when the tip of my finger brushed against something else.
“…An ice crystal?”
I pulled out the Berserk Amplifier—and found something remarkable beside it.
This particular potion was nothing like the others.
The ice crystal suspended inside it swirled and shimmered, throwing off light the way sunlight scatters across the surface of a river.
Pretty.
Before I knew it, I was standing there with my mouth hanging open in a small, helpless ooh, and after a quick scan of the surroundings—I took that one too.
If there had been harmful side effects, it would have been marked with a small skull symbol. I checked the back of the bottle. Nothing.
A potion that brought the Ice Affinity to mind.
It’s pretty, so I’m taking it.
Once House Foss was identified as the culprit behind the Creature berserk incident, this bookshop would vanish anyway.
Who told them to go doing wicked things?
Hehe.
I tucked the potion into my rabbit backpack with a secretive smile, stepped back out of the room, and was just reaching for the red spine again—
“Not bad—doesn’t even blink when she’s stealing. Like father, like daughter.”
“—eek?!”
My feet left the ground as I was hoisted up by the scruff of my neck—the man who had been sitting behind the counter.
Dolly.
He had seized me by the scruff in one enormous hand, and dumped me carelessly onto the floor.
“Ouch!”
I’d landed and knocked my knee hard against the rough wooden planks as I fell—it stung. I hadn’t even had time to reach for it before trying to push myself back up.
But—
“You’d better watch your step lately, kid.”
A gaze soaked in contempt bore down on me from just a few inches above my face.
The kind of cold that makes the spine go rigid. My shoulders shook.
Dolly and I were both official spies, but in terms of raw power and experience, there was no comparison—this man would overwhelm me entirely.
“Listen, kid. About Rater. Just before he disappeared, he told me something.”
A loaded pause.
Dolly dug his little finger into his ear, blew the tip off with a quiet breath, and tilted his head.
“He said you were getting too comfortable with the Krost people. Said he was going to tail you and see what was going on—and then we never heard from him again.”
The low voice grew quieter with every word, and with every word the scarred face drew closer.
By this point—
You could tell just from the sound of my breathing whether I was rattled. We were that close.
“Too comfortable. I’m a very dedicated actress. Hehe.”
I kept the trembling inside my chest perfectly hidden and smiled as sweetly as I could.
But he was a spy.
“Choose your audience carefully.”
Of course he wasn’t going to let it go. Dolly’s lips curved into a thin, cold line.
“You know that after Dorothy died, House Foss continued sending spies into the Krost estate on a regular basis, yes?”
…What?
Something I was hearing for the first time. My expression slipped—the first crack in my composure.
“And you know that every single spy sent—ended up dead?”
“……?”
That, too, was something I’d never heard.
“How many spies did they send?”
“How many? You’re asking me—how many? That’s rich—ha! Hahaha!”
He covered his face with his hand and laughed.
Then—in an instant—the laughter died, and the contempt in his eyes dropped back onto me like a blade.
“Well. Whatever happens, Lord Foss must be particularly fond of you. Because thanks to that woman, you’ve become an amusing little toy that can never be discarded—no matter what you do.”
“What does that mean.”
The cryptic words were beginning to genuinely unsettle me. I tried to press for a clear answer—but.
“You’ve made something interesting since your visit to the estate.”
“……”
Something rose to the surface.
I remembered now—at Ahili Circus, the moment I had lost consciousness.
“Don’t discard this one. It will become quite entertaining later.”
The two words I’d remembered with strange vividness even when everything else felt like a dream.
“……?”
The corner of my mouth trembled and fell open.
That wasn’t a nightmare?
Was this—could this be—a fragment of my forgotten past, finally surfacing?
“Hahahahaha! This is enough to drive me mad, honestly!”
Dolly had been watching my face shift and change with an observer’s eye. He burst out laughing and rose from his seat.
“Anyway—the better you get along with the Ice Duke, the more completely he’ll fall in the end. You’re doing your job very well.”
“……”
Calypse will fall?
Because I get along with Calypse?
Yes. When I thought about it now—that was exactly right.
The instructions Duke Foss had originally given me were to become a daughter of House Krost.
To become the beloved daughter of the Duke.
I had said I was done with the spies, that I refused the mission—and yet I had truly become his beloved daughter.
Which meant I had, in fact, brought Duke Foss one step closer to his ambition.
But if it ever came to light that I had become his daughter as part of an original mission—
How profoundly would Calypse feel betrayed?
________________________________________
