Succession Rights.

Succession rights.

“No, no — how could that be? I only worried that your lovely hands might come to harm, that was all.”

So that’s how she wants to play it.

Flower lifted the corners of his mouth and, on the inside, ground his teeth.

Anyone could see the mess had been staged deliberately to rile him. But he was not the sort of man to fold on the strength of this alone.

“I do so look forward to the days we’ll share from here on.”

“Indeed.”

Watching the kitchen hearth crackle merrily away, Aspara smiled with satisfaction.

“Do look forward to them, won’t you.”

At the same hour, in the rear garden of the mansion.

Jutting out from the rear garden wall was a single unfamiliar object.

Stuck.

The object jutting out was thinking.

I am well and truly stuck.

The unfamiliar object’s name was Ugli. At this moment he was wedged tight in the mansion’s garden wall, upper body thrust through to the inside, lower body sticking out to the outside.

Jack… before you recommended me a dog hole, did you stop to think for one moment… no, no. I’m the one who should have done the thinking.

Ugli cast his mind back over how he had come to this sorry state.

The plan had been simple. Aspara seemed intent on nothing more than ramming through her own demands, so the parley was likely to drag on a good while.

Meanwhile, he would meet with Sebinya and strike a bargain with her. He would help her win Aspara round to her side; in exchange, she would send Jack safely home to the north.

Slipping into the mansion had been no great trouble either. Jack, who for some strange reason knew every dog hole in the country, was on his side.

By rights it should have been no difficult matter at all. But…

Was that fellow really this slender…?

The plan had one flaw. Namely, that Jack, who had so kindly recommended him this dog hole, had a frame considerably smaller than Ugli’s.

Squeezing through the gap between the iron bars that Jack had personally endorsed, Ugli had got his hipbones clamped fast in the hole and found himself utterly unable to move.

It brought back memories of when he and Jack had first started seeing each other, and left him feeling just a touch wistful. In any other situation, he might even have sunk a little into nostalgia.

Damn it, it won’t come out… ha… all right, let’s look on the bright side. At least nothing more can go wrong from here.

“Ugli?”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me…”

He took that back. Something more could go wrong.

A voice he knew very well had just piped up from somewhere outside his line of sight.

“Ugli? …Ugli! What are you doing here?”

A voice whose last appearance had not been in the best of circumstances. Nor was the present situation much better, but…

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“I genuinely have no idea.”

The first to discover Ugli whimpering as he struggled to squeeze himself back out through the bars was none other than the lady of the house herself.

Sebinya.

True to form for a woman whose head was half-made of cotton candy, she greeted him in a cheerful voice.

“You’re stuck?”

“No, I’m doing this because I’m enjoying myself.”

“Really?”

“Does it look real?”

Setting his pride aside for the moment, he thrust both arms out toward her, like a toddler straining to be picked up by its parents.

“What in the world are you really doing?”

“…Well, I came with Lady Aspara, but they threw me out on account of a no-barbarians-allowed rule. I was told to wait outside until her business was done, but I was worried sick and couldn’t bear to wait apart, so I sneaked i— ah, aah! Gently, pull gently!”

“If I pull gently, it won’t come out.”

Ugli’s lower half was apparently wedged solid. No matter how Sebinya tugged with her slender arms, it wouldn’t budge an inch.

“A-aah! Ahh!”

“You really are stuck tight. Let me go fetch someone.”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t — don’t. It’s an iron railing, so once the sun isn’t beating on it so hard, I should be able to wriggle out.”

He did not want word of this getting around any further. And above all, Aspara was not to hear of it.

“Hmm.”

Sebinya studied him for a moment, then seated herself primly in front of him. Propping her chin in both hands as though admiring a patch of wildflowers, she began to chat, as casually as you please.

“By the way — do you know what Lady Aspara said?”

“You’re really going to chatter at me in a situation like this?”

“It’s because the situation’s like this that I’m keeping you company.”

Smiling brightly, Sebinya went on.

“Ever since you went off to the north, you and I haven’t even been able to have a proper talk, have we.”

“…What did Lady Aspara say?”

“She said she’ll stay here, would you believe!”

Ugli drew in a sharp breath in astonishment, then flinched as his ribs jammed hard against the iron railing.

“It isn’t settled — only as far as the next new moon. If her mind hasn’t changed by then, she said, she’ll stay on for good.”

“…She accepted that man’s proposal?”

“Mm-hm.”

What’s her scheme? Ugli thought.

He could roughly guess the strategy. She probably intended to buy as much time as she could and do her utmost, within the deadline, to make the other party give up.

But Flower, that walking breach of common sense, surely had some other scheme of his own. Simple unpleasantness wasn’t going to be enough to turn that man’s head.

“Ah, but Jack didn’t come. Is he planning to call him in once the new moon is done?”

Ugli twitched at the mention of his lover’s name.

“…Ahh, that idiot.”

“Mm-hm. He wasn’t with you today, you know. Did you know?”

“There’s no need to go specially calling that man here, is there? There are plenty of better attendants right here.”

“True enough, but — he’s the one who’s closest to Lady Aspara, you know.”

“All the more reason not to. Who knows what sort of relationship that man has with Aspara.”

“Do you really think Lord Flower, in this situation, would let a little thing like that bother him?”

She had a point there.

A disaster.

He had thought leaving Aspara in the south would be difficult and getting Jack back to the north would be the easy part, only to find it was the reverse…

Caught off guard by an unexpected scenario, Ugli was thrown.

“…And you?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you really all right with this?”

“Jack? No, I don’t dislike him. He’s a good, sweet boy.”

“Not that — I mean this situation. Right now.”

“…”

“Are you truly satisfied?”

Sebinya’s smiling face did not crumple. But the woman produced neither excuse nor denial. An awkward silence settled over the rear garden.

“…Ah, I see.”

“Hmm?”

“You…”

Sebinya grinned and playfully cupped the wedged Ugli’s cheeks in both hands.

“You’re jealous!”

“…What?”

“Would you like to live here too? I’m sorry, but that one might be a little difficult. Well — if you really, really wanted it, I could at least try asking, but —”

“What?”

“It’s all right, it’s perfectly understandable. I’m used to being envied.”

Ugli shook his head violently and batted the two hands away from his cheeks.

“No — why on earth would I be jealous of you?”

“Oh, come now, isn’t it obvious? Where would you find a life as perfect as mine? A husband who loves me, a splendid house, and lovely dresses. This time I even get to live together with my dearest friend. And…”

Poking him in his trapped ribs, she went on.

“My figure’s much better than yours, too.”

Ugli’s feelings careened from “flabbergasted” into “astonished.”

“What are you on about — I’m far more muscular than— ah, right. I forgot the standard of beauty on this side is half-starved little twigs.”

“Look at me — who on earth would take one look at me and call me a northern half-blood? Not like you — I haven’t so much as swallowed a bite of meat in over ten years, so I don’t go all brawny. And look at my eyes. Not like yours — both of them are pitch-black and pretty.”

“Hah.”

“You may have more of the northern blood in you than I do, but even so — you don’t put in any effort at all. Look here — I’ve put in the work and turned out this pretty. You, too — if you shed some of that muscle and curled your hair, you could be fairly presentable… shall I buy you some Eldorado berries? Two drops a day in your eyes and the color turns a lovely pitch-black. Look at me.”

“Eldorado doesn’t change the color of your eyes. It’s a fruit that makes your pupils dilate all the way and refuse to come back.”

“Even so, on the surface, they look pitch-black, don’t they? Dark-colored eyes like this are all the rage these days.”

Ugli glared distastefully at Sebinya’s pitch-black eyes, then wrenched his gaze sharply away.

Unpleasant eyes.

The Eldorado fruit was a kind of poison. Squeeze in a drop of its juice a day and the iris-sphincter muscle was ruined, leaving the pupil blown fully open; once ruined, the pupil swallowed up the iris entirely, so the eye looked like a single great black dot.

He did rather respect Sebinya for it, in a way. With pupils ruined like that, even mildly strong light ought to feel as though her eyes were being torn apart, and yet here she was, living in a mansion full of glare, swaddled in glittering ornaments.

“How has no one caught on yet? Up close it has to show.”

“Who in the world goes around peering closely at other people’s eyes?”

“What about your husb— boyfriend?”

He deliberately swapped “husband” for “boyfriend” in order to rile Sebinya.

Sebinya, however, only laughed a hah, hah and said nothing at all.

“Have you taken a lover?”

“I’m speaking in common-sense terms. That man has never once looked into your eyes?”

Sebinya went on laughing as if she were genuinely enjoying herself.

“You’ve always had that side to you. Far too idealistic.”

“This is hardly much of anything.”

“You don’t know how to fit yourself to society, that’s your trouble. If the fishbowl doesn’t suit you, the water is the one that’s supposed to change shape — but you, when it didn’t fit, you bolted off to a barren land to build a society that fit you instead. A grand idealist, truly.”

“Much obliged for the compliment.”

For the first time, Sebinya began to show a faint trace of displeasure.

“It isn’t a compliment. Just take a look at how the two of us ended up in the end. Isn’t it self-evident which was the better choice?”

“You’re a kept mistress to a trashy man. I’m the right hand of a head of state.”

“My poor little brother. Do you really think your situation is better than mine?”