“So the class monitor actually brought me here to look at the lighthouse?”
Claire tilted her head a little, looking at Ophelia.
“Not quite. There’s one last stop.”
Ophelia stood, brushed the sand from herself, and kept walking forward.
Her figure was stretched long in the moonlight.
Without noticing, they had already come near the abandoned fishing village.
The settlement was ringed with wire.
Warning signs bore the emblem of the Holy Cross and looked rather grim in the moonlight.
The people who had launched the lanterns were all gone.
A few lights could still be seen drifting farther and farther across the water, their faint candle flames swaying in the dark.
The place where the lantern-launchers had gathered turned out to be a memorial made of several stone tablets.
The names of the dead were carved on the stones.
Tiny candles dotted the spaces between them.
Bouquets that had already begun to wither lay on the ground.
“Of all the fishing villages around the Port of Nantes, only this one suffered an attack this year that wiped out the village. The Church’s report said the Heresy Inquisition Bureau fought a bloody battle here against heretics of the Dragon Cult, were outnumbered, and the tragedy followed.”
Ophelia paused and steadied herself.
“Officials, nobles, and the dead who had kin elsewhere were all taken back to cemeteries for burial. A few survivors raised money and made this memorial for the other poor souls who had nothing. The people launching lanterns just now were probably praying that the dead could rest soon.”
Claire froze.
Port of Nantes. A small fishing village. The Heresy Inquisition Bureau. The Dragon Cult.
The face of that plainsman uncle rose in her mind… and the banshee queen with twin wings and a serpent’s tail… Abigail, whom she had killed with her own hands.
“Wait for me a moment.”
Ophelia walked toward the parked motorcycle.
Claire half-crouched.
By the weak candles still burning among the stones she saw the two names.
Talen Cyrus, Abigail Cyrus, rest here.
Beneath the names sat a stuffed bear, smiling foolishly in the candlelight.
It must have been Abigail’s little bear.
If none of it had ever happened, the sunlight would still have fallen gently.
Abigail would have held that foolish stuffed bear and hopped lightly onto the little white boat Talen had built for her with such care.
Talen would have set a finely woven flower crown on Abigail’s head.
The children of the village would have crowded the shore, envy shining in their eyes as they watched Abigail on the boat.
Talen would have rowed slowly.
The little white boat would have drifted across the glittering water, raising layers of gentle ripples.
Abigail would have sat straight in her small body, like a noble little queen inspecting the waters that belonged to her.
Suddenly the wind rose.
The floating paper boats were overturned one after another by the waves.
Darkness returned to the sea once more.
Whatever the reason, in the end it was she who had killed that girl who had been like a flower bud, and the only result of it all had been to sew a wedding dress for Anne Normandy.
She suddenly felt like crying.
She closed her eyes.
Her lashes trembled slightly.
Tears welled in her eyes yet stubbornly refused to fall.
“Don’t cry.”
A cool voice sounded beside her, with a tremor that was hard to catch.
Ophelia held out a bunch of carnations to Claire.
“Don’t regret what you’ve already done. Whatever the result, we can only accept it. But we must not forget. Say a proper goodbye to them.”
Claire bent down and tucked the somewhat crushed bunch of white carnations into the stuffed bear’s arms.
It was still smiling that foolish smile.
Back at the motorcycle, Ophelia handed Claire the helmet.
The lighthouse beam strengthened and faded for a few seconds like a beat, marking the hour.
The voice of the sea grew farther and farther.
The same melody, sometimes gentle, sometimes violent, sometimes silent.
Does the sound of the sea have a soul of its own… or do people project their own souls onto the sea? Claire could not help thinking.
The engine roar tore through the thick night once more.
The racing motorcycle threw up scattered grit from the sand.
The glittering sea had become a flowing sheet of silver, racing backward through their vision.
“I’m a little tired. Can I lean on you for a while?” Claire said softly.
“As long as you want.”
Claire leaned forward, her forehead resting against Ophelia’s back, her arms tightening a little as well.
She hummed softly the old love song she had heard in the barbecue shop.
“I guess in Casablanca there must be a lot of heartbroken people.
You know I’ve never been there,
so I have no way of knowing.”
The slightly off-key singing scattered on the wind.
If only this ride could go on aimlessly forever.
But I still have things I must finish.
…Thank you, class monitor.
Liz sat up slowly on the bed and stretched her arms and legs.
She knew her body was almost recovered.
Sometimes even she was surprised by a vampire’s constitution.
She pushed open the window.
The street outside glittered with light.
The cold autumn wind carried a trace of the sea’s briny smell.
If she breathed it long enough, the chill seemed to settle inside her body.
While she had been unconscious she had dreamed a very long dream.
In the dream she had been a little knight on a pony who met a pitiful princess whose country had fallen.
The little knight said to the little princess, Don’t be sad. I’ll go on an adventure with you.
Many years later the princess restored her country and was surrounded by important people of every kind—foreign princes, mysterious witches, each of them stronger than the little knight.
Yet that princess stayed at the knight’s side.
She said that in her loneliest hour only the knight had reached out a hand to her.
In reality, however, the princess had not chosen her.
In the testing ground, the moment Liz saw Claire and Phine looking at each other for so long, she had understood the whole truth.
Or rather, she had guessed it long ago and had only been deceiving herself.
In fact she and Claire were the same kind of person—sensitive, quick to wear themselves out inside.
Both of them startled easily, bristled the instant they were provoked, and made the wrong decision the instant they bristled, just like a moment ago.
Liz felt she was about to collapse from exhaustion.
This farce ought to end.
It was time to put things back on the proper track.
She walked slowly to the writing desk and lightly pressed the telegraph key.
Doing this felt like betraying Claire, yet the body-double plan had already failed and Phine had recognized Claire.
This was the moment to report to the Bureau at once.
What she was doing was right.
She was helping everyone.
If they waited until they were wanted across the whole territory it would be too late.
Yet the finger on the key was still very heavy.
She kept feeling like a traitor.
This isn’t betrayal. This is correcting a mistake! a persuader in her heart seemed to shout.
Another faint voice said softly, Don’t. If you do this, she’ll be heartbroken.
In a daze, a silver-haired girl appeared at the window across the desk, gazing silently at Liz.
Liz did not know her, yet she looked a little familiar.
She was beautiful—long silver hair, beautiful red eyes, clothes very fine.
“You looking for me?” Liz asked.
At first the girl’s face was expressionless.
Then that beautiful face twisted ever so slightly.
A crystal tear rolled slowly down her cheek.
Liz did not know how long their eyes had met.
Perhaps only a second.
Perhaps several minutes had already passed.
The girl finally spoke.
In that instant the autumn wind howled up suddenly.
The wind pouring into the room swallowed her words, yet Liz could read the shape of her lips.
“Don’t do this. She’ll be sad.”
Liz stood stunned.
In the blink of an eye the girl’s figure vanished.
She suddenly understood why the girl had looked familiar.
That silver hair and those red eyes were exactly Christine’s features—Christine Salamander!
Founder of the United Kingdom, the Fire God, commander of the Fire Rose army, King of Ten Thousand Armies…
While she ran through the First King’s countless titles she walked to the window.
There was no trace that Queen Christine had ever been there.
Only the long blade named Gram stood quietly against the wall.
Liz shook her head and let out a small sigh.
It seemed it had only been a hallucination born of her own heavy heart, not the old First King appearing in spirit.
In the restaurant hanging the sign for authentic plains barbecue, the phonograph was still playing that old love song.
Liz ate roast meat by herself with a bottle of soda.
When she and Claire used to grind performance in the Fourth Agency they had often eaten barbecue as a late-night meal in cities large and small.
Claire’s slap had not actually surprised her.
From the enrollment ball onward she had understood what that impostor princess meant to Claire.
Yet she had still been unable to stop herself from probing, even though she knew what choice Claire would finally make.
That slap had still left her stunned, like being hurt by the hedgehog she had raised at her side.
It hurt more than being pricked by any other hedgehog.
The pain was like a bone breaking, yet how could there be a bone inside a heart?
A hedgehog was a hedgehog in the end.
She had understood that long ago.
Claire had always been that beautiful, that arrogant, that indifferent.
This was only the first time she had turned her spines toward Liz herself.
Just then the clerk came over, a small potted cactus in his hand, and set it gently on the seat across from her.
“Let this little fellow keep you company while you eat.”
Liz looked at the clerk in confusion.
“Why give me this?”
“Yesterday there was another guest who also ate alone. He looked like he was missing someone. I thought maybe a little companion would make a guest dining alone feel better.”
The clerk’s voice was mild.
“And you look like you have a lot on your mind too.”
He touched one of the cactus’s little spines with a fingertip and smiled.
“It’s covered in spines, but it’s actually very gentle.”
“Who needs this kind of thing for company!” Liz said with a frown.
“Is there a problem with me eating alone?”
The clerk nodded and withdrew.
Liz kept eating the roast meat, yet she could not help glancing at the little cactus now and then.
It stood there quietly, fine little spines covering its green body, gleaming faintly under the lights.
The more she looked the more irritable she felt.
She reached out to push it away, yet when her hand hung in mid-air she suddenly stopped and gently stroked the edge of the pot.
She drained the drink in her cup in one go, then buried her head in her arms and muttered, “Liz, you really are a huge idiot…”