Kitten Blue Eyes (6)

“Already?”

“Before I leave, I realized I should ask you a favor, brother.”

When Alicia addressed Felix, she usually called him “Felix” by name.

When making a special request, she elevated it to “Your Lordship the Marquess.”

Lately, when Felix produced good results, she called him “Head of House” or “my lord Head.”

She almost never called him “brother.”

“What is it……?”

Felix grew a little tense.

There was always a reason for an unusual form of address.

“Brother, don’t date the maids.”

Alicia chattered with a brilliant smile and an easy tone.

But her expression was saturated with the threat that if he did date a maid, she would not let it slide.

“……I—I’ve never done anything like that……. I’m not that kind of nobleman, Alicia.”

Felix was flabbergasted—and aggrieved.

Among nobles there were men who abused their status to do filthy things, but he was not one of them.

Not that it had never happened.

Alicia let out a hollow laugh only inwardly.

Thinking of it again made her heartsick.

In the past, after being pushed out as heir, Felix had gone quiet for a while, then suddenly fallen into dissipation.

It culminated in a raging affair with a married maid that threw the household into turmoil.

A man on the cusp of becoming marquess could not possibly marry a maid.

Worst of all, the maid was married.

Had Felix been caught forcing an illicit relationship by flaunting his noble status, he would merely have been expelled from the house.

But when the affair was exposed, the maid defended Felix fiercely, saying she truly loved him.

Felix insisted that the only one who truly understood him was Lindsay.

The house was turned upside down.

There were other elements that drove things toward greater chaos, but she did not even want to think of them.

“No—I mean don’t date them.”

Alicia spoke without disturbing her gentle expression.

“……All right.”

Felix had little zeal for romance.

The pressure of succeeding the house always left him no room to look elsewhere.

To him, Alicia’s request bordered on absurd.

“Don’t date married women either.”

“Pff!”

Felix was drinking tea when it went down the wrong pipe, and he coughed and hacked.

“Why no answer, brother?”

“Al—kooluk—icia. I don’t do that.”

Felix truly did not pine for romance.

He had, without much regret, received confessions; more than once he had quietly been given a handkerchief.

But to him, carrying on the marquessate came first.

“I’ll trust you.”

Alicia answered with a clear face.

If that trust were betrayed, she looked ready to end him—but her face overflowed with serenity.

Which made it all the more frightening.

“I’ll do well.”

To Felix’s resolve, Alicia said idly that she believed him.

It did not sound like she believed him at all.

“They have someone behind them.”

Alicia calmed her expression and mentioned it as if in passing.

Felix understood at once who “they” were.

House Miller and House Brennel.

The vassals who had betrayed Rain had a backer.

Felix, too, suspected the existence of a backer and had been keeping an eye on the remaining Brennel line.

Brennel showed no reaction to the eradication of the Miller family.

Their movements differed little from usual.

If anything, they acted proactively as vassals of House Rain and lent strength to Felix, the new marquess.

It seemed they had already established a tight communications line with their patron.

He was watching the viscount’s house, but nothing conspicuous appeared.

Alicia handed Felix a neatly folded slip.

[Wing Street, 7th Avenue.]

Having checked the note, Felix did not show great agitation.

He looked surprised—but did not let it show.

“So that’s why you’re going back to Baden?”

“That’s not the only reason.”

Alicia smiled vaguely, guessing at the many things to come.

“Before you leave for Baden, let’s spend time with Mother often.”

“Mother and I are to go walking together starting tomorrow. I’ll make time to see you too. Ah—I’d like to sponsor Lord Elgin’s third son. It can be in the form of support from Rain. Write him a recommendation for admission to the Imperial Academy.”

Felix had many questions, but he simply nodded.

For some reason, it felt like that was what he should do.

Alicia’s twentieth birthday passed quietly. Family would have liked to invite even close acquaintances to celebrate, but at Alicia’s request it drifted by as if nothing were happening.

Family and close friends, forced by Alicia’s firm request, left birthday gifts covertly as if on an intelligence operation and slipped away.

A birthday gift arrived from Reichardt as well, sent from Baden. The opulent presents, the beautiful gift boxes, and the splendid silk ribbons alone announced that it was Alicia’s birthday.

The fresh summer flowed by quietly—very quietly.

Alicia had decided to shape the situation going forward, but she could not preempt everything.

Though Judith handled much on her own, uninvited guests sometimes came.

The former houses of the grand duchesses—who coveted the position of Grand Duchess of Tessen—had not given up.

It was not like when she had been in Tessen or before she had help from Judith and the Croa Clan, when several teams came daily.

Just when one might forget, a few would pop up.

But assassins infiltrating Rain was rare.

Kagang!

In the dark, steel clashed.

In the glass conservatory, Alicia sensed a presence and dashed into the maze garden.

Perhaps they decided breaking the conservatory’s glass was worse than the garden, for the assassins watched Alicia head for the garden.

From the right, two assassins with daggers lunged at once.

Without knowing how, they took blows to the neck and were thrown into the maze garden’s trees.

When Alicia left the conservatory, she had taken up her spear—but the pursuers did not realize she had armed herself.

The archer laying in ambush lost his bow to a sudden strike flying into his face and tumbled down beneath the tree.

Shaking off the shock to his face and trying to spring up, the archer reached for the bow at his feet and was knocked out by the spear-shaft slamming down on the back of his head.

Only the one following behind as backup realized Alicia was armed.

The marquess’s lady held a pitch-black, massive spear.

There were eight assassins in all.

Aside from the backup, all were first-class killers.

As soon as they revealed themselves, two went down, and the archer was dealt with.

Four first-class assassins charged Alicia all at once.

Alicia back-stepped and swept her spear.

Ddadang! ddadang! rang the sound of thrown blades being knocked aside as the spear turned sideways.

At the same time, the attackers who had rushed her were blown back like leaves caught in wind.

The backup sensed the job had failed.

He gave up quickly and turned away.

His movements, assassin-like, killed all sound of footsteps.

But he had not gone even three steps when—thud!—he crashed down forward with a racket.

As he fell, a vicious vertigo seized him.

It felt less like pain from a spear strike and more like being hit by poison.

“These guests have no honor.”

Alicia walked unhurriedly past the fallen assassin.

The night that had boomed briefly with violence settled into calm as if nothing had happened.

Standing in the maze garden where only the insects sang, Alicia spoke into the air.

“Ren.”

A tree’s deep shadow wavered.

“……Yes, my lady.”

A man’s outline stepped from the tree-shadow and replied after a short hush.

“Please tidy this up.”

Alicia spoke lightly.

By tone alone, it might have been, Please clear the empty teacups.

“I propose to dose them and pass them off as drug addicts. I have already identified a facility near the Last Cliff where they confine patients ravaged by drugs.”

Ren offered politely.

“Perfect.”

Alicia praised Ren and tapped her back with the spear-shaft as she strolled out of the maze garden.

The thrum of the shaft tapping her slender back was briskly cheerful.

“…….”

It might have been the sound a neighborhood spear instructor would make, but Ren did not quibble.

He checked, with his eyes, the assassins hanging here and there in the maze garden.

Falling silent, Ren folded his hands in a devout clasp.

“Father in Heaven. Mother who brings all things back to life. Please bestow mercy upon the ferocity of our lady. Your young priest earnestly petitions you. Look with leniency upon her fierce struggle to preserve her own life.”

In the dark, the sound of a fervent prayer echoed softly.

Finishing his prayer, Ren checked one by one whether the assassins still had their lives attached.

Back in Tessen, Alicia had sometimes smashed an assassin’s hands, arms, or feet to pieces—but lately she no longer did so.

She ended it by cleanly severing the sinews.

Even for top-of-the-trade “clients,” they would never hold a blade again.

If Ren found an assassin whose sinews were not fully cut, he severed the hands or both feet.

Alicia was kind to “guests,” but he was not the type to dispose of trash tenderly.

Gathering the trash into leather sacks, Ren loaded them into a wagon and moved out.

In a shabby storehouse he had rented in advance, a door hidden within led underground.

Hand-feeding the unconscious trash their drugs and securing the prison door firmly on his way out, Ren sighed.

Drugged and amnesiac, the assassins would be left only with violence, fighting one another until spent.

After a few days of steeping them, he would abandon them at the facility before the Last Cliff, and they would be taken care of.

“I can’t do this alone anymore.”

Climbing onto the wagon, Ren muttered in a tired voice.

He decided to write to his friends.

On the dark road, the empty wagon’s clattering rumble sounded desolate.

Anne Brennel stood before the mirror.

Bare feet; a scant mint dress showing the ankles.

The apron she wore over the faded dress, with its large pocket, was a maid’s.

In the mirror, her toes wriggled.

A calm voice sounded slowly.

“Roots—healthy.”

Her ankles, exposed below the hem, quivered faintly.

Her knees and waist creaked and shifted.

Then her shoulders, elbows, and wrists followed with movement.

Her right wrist slipped.

“Ow. Concern—right upper branch motor function.”

Her gloomy voice was low and quiet.

Even voicing pain, it held little emotion.

Bare feet stepped one pace closer to the mirror.

From root to tip, her red hair looked a bit dry, but no part was damaged.

“Leaves—healthy.”

Her hair was long enough to reach her waist.

With a sparse-bristled brush, Anne scrubbed through it and bound it tight in one.

Her lips, gazing into the mirror, let out a sigh.

A face white to the point of pallor.

The light freckles dusted over her nose stood out all the more now that her hair was tied back.

“A face is something you live with as given.”

Anne wondered whether she should put on the pink powder that Cynthia used.

But that was too much to ask for.

It had not been long since she had stopped smearing compost and soil on her face.

Her lips, which had been staring blankly at the pale face in the mirror, opened slowly.

“Lady Anne.”

The face in the mirror smiled kindly—like a proper lady.

“Yes.”

At calling herself and answering herself, Anne gave a faint chuckle.

“Work like an ox today as well!”

Toward the self in the mirror, Anne clenched a fist and cried out.

She regretted the lifeless expression and the calm voice.

But without even this, it was hard to endure being alive.

Anne was the eldest daughter of Viscount Brennel.

Anne thought of herself as a gardener.

And she was the Brennel family’s scapegoat.

“Anne!”

Cynthia bellowed from the first-floor hall.

Her loud voice rang through the house again and again.

“Anne!”

Lately, Cynthia Brenel’s mood has been the worst.

After a few quiet days, she had become even more savage than before.

It was as if she were angry that living things around her were breathing at all.

“Grand Hairy Cicada.”

With the impious thought kept inside, Anne quietly crossed the hall.

“You called, Cynthia.”

Anne stood politely before Cynthia.

“What are you doing! Lazy wretch. Can’t you move faster?!”

Cynthia struck Anne’s forearm with the fan in her hand.

Anne endured the violence in silence.