Chapter 69

“Good grief, our Queen certainly is generous.”

Once the card games had run their course and boredom set in, the prisoners began to depart the room in small groups—Clemens among them, disappearing alongside Morgan and Liesel to process the land transfer. Afterward, only two figures remained in the hollowed-out living quarters.

There was Horst, the young man defined by his mischievous expression, and Heidemarie, the Queen of the Prison who never let her bewitching smile fade.

Horst, who had been known exclusively as the “Mad Boy Doctor” before his incarceration, sipped his tea while shrugging, an unhideable cruelty shimmering in his eyes.

“Clemens was the primary culprit behind you being sent to this prison, wasn’t he? To think you’d not only give a guy like that land for his wife, but even cheer him up with the news that she hasn’t divorced him.”

“Oh, my. In Daifugo,¹ the Emperor is supposed to give the Pauper their two most useless cards. A plot of land in the countryside and the hidden feelings of some woman are things that have absolutely nothing to do with me. I simply handed them over.”

“Heh. Then what exactly did ‘Lust’ get from him in return?”

“Loyalty. And entertainment.”

Heidemarie answered Horst’s pointed question with graceful composure.

“Gentlemen of that sort are weak to humiliation. Since I’ve thoroughly broken both his heart and his pride, I’m sure he’ll make an excellent pawn. Besides, that ‘poetic talent’ of his is truly hard to part with.”

“…True enough.”

Perhaps recalling the poem performed earlier, Horst’s voice trembled slightly with suppressed laughter. Then, as if to signal the end of that topic, he returned his empty cup to the saucer and hopped to his feet.

He began pulling a vast array of tools from a cloth bag resting beside the sofa. As Horst moved to the window and started noisily assembling something, Heidemarie raised an interested eyebrow.

“What are you doing, Greed?”

“Hmm? Just putting a telescope together. Based on the height and angle, I can’t see it unless I’m right here. Let’s see… the market, the Central Market of Frenzel should be… I’m going to open these curtains a bit.”

“Ugh, it’s too bright.”

Heidemarie voiced her complaint as Horst finished the assembly with practiced speed, pried the curtains open, and stationed the telescope. Sunlight streamed through the gap in the fabric, slightly thinning the atmosphere of lethargy and darkness.

“What business could you possibly have with Frenzel, and a market at that?”

“—Hehe. As if you haven’t already seen right through me.”

The cleverest man in the prison replied deftly to the Queen’s casual inquiry. In that instant, her noble, cat-like eyes flashed with a knowing glint. Horst was now certain: she knew he had slipped out of the prison to go see Elma in Frenzel.

Essentially, no secret could survive in the presence of this beautiful courtesan.

“Here, a souvenir,” he said, handing her a cage containing a Magic Moth with beautiful wings. He then turned back and began adjusting the focus of the telescope.

“You already know, don’t you? I went to see Elma. Being who you are, I’m sure you realized she’d come close to this ‘home’ (prison). For that matter, you probably grasped that she’d run into a bit of a crisis, right? And yet you kept quiet. You really have a wicked streak.”

“—Well, if I had said anything, everyone would have tried to go see that child all at once, wouldn’t they?”

When he asked the question as a probe, Heidemarie admitted it with surprising ease. She then pouted slightly at Horst as he peered into the telescope.

“Don’t you understand? It’s called ‘leaving the nest.’ A brother who fussed over his sister excessively would only end up being hated.”

“As if I was excessive. To prove it, I came back peacefully without bringing the unconscious Elma home or forcibly removing any unpleasant pests. Simply watching her from afar or ‘investigating’ several years’ worth of the Frenzel Lord’s diaries to ensure no seeds of unrest were surrounding my sister… I’d call that perfectly ordinary.”

“Setting aside the exposure of the Lord’s privacy, you should stop peeking at a girl of that age. You really have no common sense.”

It was a moment where the very definitions of “ordinary” and “common sense” were in question.

However, despite her words, Heidemarie was still a mother at heart. She seemed curious about her daughter’s movements; as Horst murmured things like, “Ah, I found the tent Elma seems to be producing,” and “It’s a huge success,” she casually asked while looking at the Magic Moth in the cage:

“—So, how is it? Is she blending in well with those around her? She isn’t being isolated or bullied, is she?”

“Hmm, I don’t think that’s the case. She’s surrounded by a massive crowd. —Ah, everyone around her started kneeling all at once. Or rather, they’ve started offering prayers and crowns with everything they’ve got.”

“Oh. Then I can rest easy.”

The pity of it was that her values, too, were spectacularly skewed. Heidemarie nodded with satisfaction and spoke to Horst, who was still peering intently through the telescope.

“I was worried, but it seems that child is blending into society quite normally after all. ‘Greed,’ isn’t it about time you—”

However, Horst, who was usually quick to chime in or cut people off, unusually said nothing. Feeling suspicious, Heidemarie looked up with a “Greed?”

“…Honestly, now.”

Leaning out toward the window to look down at the ground, Horst muttered in exasperation.

“What is it with people being unable to say what needs to be said just because they hold someone dear? It’s beyond my understanding.”

“What is it? Are you talking about Clemens?”

“No, not him… well, I guess him too. Remaining silent and distancing himself just because he loved his wife, was it? It makes no sense.”

Through the lens, he was looking at a father and son—Jonas and Kevin—locked in a tight embrace. Horst shrugged and turned back to Heidemarie.

“The Lord of Frenzel, for some reason, seemed to believe his own son was a Demon. Maybe because his growth was so stunted? Even though I was the one who delivered him—how rude, honestly. And then, all his diary entries were about whether he should tell the ‘truth’ or not, or no, more importantly, making the utmost effort so his son would be accepted by the people… stuff like that.”

It didn’t even occur to Horst that he was the cause of the rift between that father and son.

“Well, looks like they just reconciled,” he said, pointing at the telescope and snorting in genuine derision. “I don’t see the point in all that agonizing. It’s the same for the Lord and Clemens. If someone is precious to you, don’t worry about it—just tell them.”

“—I suppose they were afraid that by revealing their true feelings or the truth, the other person would be hurt.”

“And I’m saying I don’t get that part!”

When Heidemarie pointed that out quietly, Horst’s lip curled even further in a sulk.

“If telling your wife you love her means she’s seen as an accomplice and gets stones thrown at her, then just take the wife with you and live in the prison together. If telling your son the truth means he’ll worry or be persecuted, then just lock him in his room and spoil him rotten until he doesn’t have the room to worry. That’s what it means to treasure someone, isn’t it?”

Horst was a man who had strayed from the path of humanity when his sister was broken, and who had once given up on his own life when he lost her.

It was not strange for a man like him to believe that locking up someone you treasure and protecting them thoroughly was the only true form of love.

In fact, there wasn’t a hint of malice in his tone.

Because he believed it from the bottom of his heart, there was only a sense of innocence and naivety.

Or rather—

“Hey, don’t you think so too, Marie?”

The question he added with narrowed eyes contained a microscopic amount of lingering accusation toward Heidemarie for exiling the precious Elma.

At the same time, it was a subtle hint that he knew Elma’s secret.

And an irritation toward Heidemarie, who refused to bring up that truth to the girl herself or those around her.

If she was so worried about hurting the girl by revealing her true identity, then she never should have let her leave the prison in the first place.

She should have kept her protected, cherished and safe, in this sturdy, reliable cradle—

Horst’s hazel eyes declared exactly that.

Uncharacteristically, a stifling silence fell between the two.

Yet, Heidemarie remained as composed as ever.

“—How young,” she murmured.

With a slow blink, she effortlessly parried Horst’s sarcasm and irritation, her face settling into a quiet smile.

“Listen, Horst. What you’re describing is the logic of someone inside these walls.”

She stood up slowly and gently covered the eyepiece of the telescope with her pale hand.

“You’ve stayed in this prison a little too long. You think that way because you’re always staring at fragments of the world through a tiny window.”

“…You’re one to talk, considering you’re even more of a shut-in than I am.”

“Exactly. And that is why I want that child to know the world outside.”

Even in the face of his sharp rebuttal, Heidemarie did not yield. She stood beside Horst and gazed out at the light-filled world beyond the small prison window.

“I’ve been a caged bird since I was old enough to understand the world, and now I’m a prisoner. The ‘outside’ was always a world that had nothing to do with me. I spent so much time gazing at that dazzling world through these segmented windows.”

“…………”

“But that’s why, on the night I took control of this prison, when I took my first walk outside with Gil… I felt a dizzying mix of terror and excitement at how vast and endless it all was.”

Heidemarie closed her eyes softly, as if reminiscing.

She could still feel the touch of the night breeze on her skin.

The overwhelming scent of the lush trees.

The stars had spread across the sky as if they were about to spill over. The earth was damp and uneven.

That space, neither restricted nor maintained, brimmed with a jagged strength she had never known.

And—the lights of the houses she saw looking down from the cliff where the prison stood.

The way those faint lights flickered in rows was like stars on the ground; it was beautiful enough to pierce her heart.

“If someone tells me I shouldn’t force a parent’s desires onto a child, then so be it. But I don’t care. No matter what anyone says, I believe this is what’s best.”

Heidemarie spoke with absolute certainty. She picked up the cage of Magic Moths from the table and held it up near the window.

“I love that child so much I want to lock her away and protect her. That’s why I prepared this prison (home) for her in the past. …But now, because I love her, I want her to touch the outside sky. I want her to be free and strong, carving her own path through the sky with her own wings. So—I have no need for cages or truths that would hinder that.”

Then, she hooked her finger on the cage door and swung it open toward the window.

—Flutter, flutter, flutter…

The Magic Moths, their emerald wings turning translucent in the sunlight, vanished into the air with the sound of beating wings.

After watching them until they were completely out of sight, Heidemarie turned back and gave Horst a sweet smile.

“Tell me, don’t you think so too?”

It was as if she had perfectly flipped their earlier conversation.

In Heidemarie’s eyes, filled with an alluring smile, there was a microscopic amount of accusation directed at Horst.

An accusation toward Horst, who continued to treat Elma like an infant, overlapping her with the sister he had once lost.

—It’s time you looked at Elma herself.

Heidemarie’s indigo eyes, like those of a noble cat, spoke more eloquently than anything else.

“…Yeah, yeah.”

After a brief silence, Horst let out a short sigh. Then, with a wry smile, he spread his hands wide.

“I’m no match for our Queen. You’re right. You always are.”

Shrugging his shoulders, he began to pack up the telescope. Under his breath, he muttered petulantly.

“Yeah… I know that too.”

In his mind, he saw the image of Elma, wearing an expression much more mature than he had expected.

Elma.

His precious, precious “little sister.”

But she wasn’t a replacement for anyone.

She was a person in her own right, with her own will and emotions, climbing the stairs to adulthood day by day.

If he truly treasured and respected her—then instead of locking her in a prison and spoiling her rotten, he should release her into the world and watch over her, believing in her growth.

That was exactly why he had decided to make his exit in that moment, after all.

“Locking them up out of love, and letting them go out of love, huh…”

If only he could lean entirely toward one or the other, he wouldn’t have to worry like this.

Blowing a stray bit of wing-scale dust off the telescope lens, Horst looked at Heidemarie with a wry smile.

“The ‘love’ of the outside world is such a frustrating thing.”