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Led along by Ornis’s tug, Noi stood up and trailed after him, her face downcast.
The mansion was vast. As they walked a fair distance, they passed many people.
“Hey, what’re you doing making a cute girl cry?”
“What’s this, Ornis—your girlfriend?”
“Never thought there’d be springtime for our Ornis.”
Everyone they passed called out to Ornis. It drove home how he had lived here before becoming Kardia’s disciple.
“Seriously… can’t they be any louder…”
His fed-up look gave him the air of a teenage boy being pestered by relatives. It was a different impression than the Ornis on the floating isle.
“Here.”
Ornis popped her into the kitchens.
The place brimmed with life. Heat and the scent of prepped vegetables filled the air. Long worktables stood in rows, iron cookware and strings of dried meat and herbs hanging above.
On the hearth built into the wall, iron pots danced. Beside a gigantic “Icicle Lodge” cold store Noi had never seen the like of, grains and vegetables were neatly arranged.
Women in aprons laughed loudly, called out instructions, and bustled around the tables.
“This way.”
Moving like he knew the place by heart, Ornis brought Noi to the stores and picked up a turnip.
“Here.”
Noi took it without a thought and bit in with a crisp chomp.
Watching her munch—shaka shaka shaka—Ornis let out a small breath of relief.
“Hey! Who said you could just eat that!”
Startled by the shout from a woman in the kitchen, Noi flinched. Beside the flustered Noi, Ornis replied blandly,
“She’s a guest. Long trip—she’s hungry.”
“P-pardon the intrusion—no, thank you for the meal.”
“Ah… a guest. Sorry about that. …Ornis, so you’re back.”
He knew people here too, it seemed—but this one hadn’t heard he’d returned. In a place this large, not everyone met at once.
Relieved, Noi went back to crunching her turnip; Ornis wore a jaded look.
“I’ve heard that a hundred times in three days.”
“What! Ornis is here?!”
“Hey, you—over here!”
Mages had a vertical hierarchy. When the ones on top were noisy matrons, it showed even more.
Grumbling, Ornis went to the women calling from the worktables. Most were in their forties to fifties, all with serious faces.
“We’re thinking duck pasty for the main, but stuck on the starter.”
“I’m telling you, a liver pâté would please him most!”
“Last time he was thrilled with the pickled fish!”
“Hey Ornis, what does Lord Kardia like best?”
After fretting over the menu for Kardia, they had turned to Ornis, who handled his meals daily.
“Sensei doesn’t have likes and dislikes.”
“Even so, he’s got to like something!”
“I’m saying he doesn’t dislike anything and doesn’t especially like anything either. He truly eats anything served, and he’s never once said he wants something.”
Noi blinked at Ornis’s words, then her eyes landed on a basket on the table.
“…These eggs? How will you serve them?”
A woman answered, a touch nonplussed that the quiet, turnip-munching Noi had spoken.
“Ah, those are boiled eggs. For staff meals.”
“Kardia likes boiled eggs.”
“Beg pardon?”
“When there are boiled eggs, he always reaches out on his own for a second.”
“Eh?”
The woman and Ornis both let out surprised sounds.
Kardia had always been a small eater who wouldn’t take more unless Noi diligently put seconds on his plate, but only when there were boiled eggs would he timidly reach for another on his own.
“Why, you—!”
“Hey, don’t you dare drop Lord Kardia’s honorific!”
“You sassy little madam!”
“First off, something as simple as boiled eggs—there’s no way we can serve that!”
Ornis tried to say something to Noi, but the kitchen women’s voices drowned him out.
“Then serve the dish you’re proudest of.”
Noi said it as if it were nothing.
The woman’s face clearly tightened.
Beside Noi, Ornis muttered,
“Idiot.”
Missing his intent, Noi met the women’s eyes squarely.
“Kardia is someone who knows gratitude. If it’s a dish you’ve worried over this much and poured your hearts into, he will absolutely be pleased.”
Disarmed by Noi’s earnest words, the women glanced at each other.
At that moment, the kitchen’s heavy wooden door banged open.
“—Hey! You lot! Lord Kardia’s coming this way!”
“L-Lord Kardia?!”
All the women’s eyes flew wide.
“He’s almost here!”
At the cry of the woman who ran in from outside, everyone hastily stripped off their headscarves and bent at the waist.
Noi stared, mouth open, at their well-drilled unison—until the stout woman beside her pushed Noi’s head down too.
“W-wait, why me—”
“Hush!”
The sharp tone made Noi fall silent. Over the gentle bubbling of pots, small voices reached her.
“Is it true Lord Kardia came to find a bride?”
“Then he’s come to see us, too?”
“Oh no. I should’ve put on rouge… He never comes to the kitchens…”
The young women, cheeks touched with pink, patted their aprons and smoothed stray hairs with their fingers.
On any other day, it would have been a charming sight; today, for some reason, it pierced her chest.
(…So. Kardia… doesn’t have to be with me…)
Now she understood exactly what had been dragging her down.
It was sad, of course, that she had no mana, that she wasn’t as beautiful as these women, that she might be turned out from the floating isle with nowhere to live.
But what hurt most was that Kardia seemed ready to ask someone other than Noi to play the “bride.”
(After all that talk of “my bride, my bride,” too.)
Because he had lifted her gently in his arms, met her eyes, and always helped her—
—Somewhere along the way, Noi had completely started to believe it.
“She’s here!”
The whisper spread through the kitchen and fell into a charged hush.
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