19 — 3

“Huh, someone was already here! Wait… Noel???? No way.”

Today, Eloise had visited Beth from early morning and knocked on the greenhouse door.

It was not that anyone in particular had decided on a rule, but an unspoken rule of sorts had formed where everyone refrained from entering the greenhouse when someone else was inside.

They would blankly watch Beth as she worked, doze on the sofa in the greenhouse, or have tea with Beth.

Everyone came to this greenhouse to take a short rest.

Beth always quietly welcomed all of them with a smile.

There was something that revived them just by looking at the plants growing so freely, lushly, and freshly, and by surrendering themselves beneath the light.

For that reason, unless they timed it carefully, someone from the Magic Institute was always inside the greenhouse.

After finishing a major job yesterday, Eloise had lined up from the morning to buy famous bagels from the Castle Town, and had come to have Beth and the greenhouse heal her fatigue.

“This is my greenhouse. What is strange about me being here?”

The one who haughtily sat up from the sofa in his nightclothes was none other than the chief magician-sama of this Magic Institute.

“No, that is true, but…”

“Oh, good morning, Eloise-sama. You are very early today!”

Beth, who had been tending the plants with a watering can, welcomed the dumbfounded Eloise with a smile.

“Good morning… Hey, what exactly is… this situation??”

“It seems he can sleep in this greenhouse without drinking the purple medicine, so Noel-sama has been sleeping and waking here every day lately. I wonder if he is not cold.”

Beth, in a good mood because of Eloise’s souvenir, set down the watering can and boiled water while humming.

However, Eloise froze.

The purple medicine was an extremely strong and highly addictive sleeping drug.

Eloise knew painfully well just how significant it was for Noel, who had suffered from severe insomnia, to be able to sleep without needing the purple medicine.

And Eloise also knew very well the reason Noel’s long insomnia had begun.

With faint tears welling in her beautiful blue eyes, which were framed by luxurious eyelashes, Eloise said,

“So here… by Beth’s side, you can sleep, Noel.”

“It would seem so.”

Noel let out a large sigh.

This sigh was a sigh of relief.

“Here, I can feel at ease. If Beth is here, I can wake up at ease.”

The aroma of tea brewing came from afar.

Beth called out from a distance.

“Noel-sama, please drink the morning dew from the dayflowers growing outside first, like always. Tea comes after that.”

Still in his nightclothes and barefoot, Noel left the greenhouse and gently activated magic. Then he gathered the morning dew clinging to the dayflowers growing nearby into a bottle and drank it with an audible gulp.

Then he explained to Eloise.

“In the morning, after I wake up, she makes me drink the morning dew from the dayflowers outside first like this. At first, I wondered what she was talking about, but when I tried listening to Beth just to test it, my body felt lighter. How should I put it? It feels as though my body revives from the world of night into the world of morning.”

No medical book said anything about morning dew from dayflowers being good for insomnia patients, and even if Eloise drank it, it would probably be nothing more than water.

However, when Noel, whose mind and body were utterly exhausted, put that morning drop into his mouth, it felt as though light entered his body.

“Did you tell that child the story of how you developed insomnia, Noel?”

Noel slowly shook his head.

“Unbelievable. And yet, if I recall, that child only lived as a miller every day in a countryside where they do not even have macarons. I wonder what kind of famous doctor she would become if she studied medicine.”

“I asked her that as well, but she said that whether with plants or humans, complicated illnesses are beyond her. She said she can somehow help lives that still have the strength to recover on their own return to where they ought to be.”

From inside the greenhouse, they heard Beth calling the two of them, saying the tea was ready.

“Eloise-sama! Thank you! I had wanted to try blueberry bagels!”