Episode 10
“Yesterday’s water I gave Mother was tea made from a dried herb called ryehwa, ground into powder and steeped, with sugar added,” she said quietly.
Hearing that made something twist inside him — a sick, uneasy feeling. Shaquille Aubrey forced himself to hide his growing discomfort.
Well, it was something he wanted to ask anyway, so he forced a calm tone and asked, “…Ryehwa? Isn’t that just a weed?”
“Yes. It’s not well known, but ryehwa calms some of the symptoms your mother shows,” Anisha answered.
“How do you know that…?” Shackol asked.
“I once saw an apothecary use it that way. But ryehwa tea shouldn’t be drunk too often,” Anisha said firmly, looking him straight in the eye. Shackelford met her gaze and didn’t look away.
“Why not?”
“If you drink it often, you’ll build a tolerance, and it stops working. So you should only drink ryehwa tea occasionally — when the pain is unbearable,” she explained slowly, lowering her eyes.
Shackelford watched her, thinking, ‘If there’s no real cure yet, building a tolerance to ryegrass would be bad. If a true treatment is developed later, the resistance might make it ineffective.’
Anisha was calm. In her head, she figured things out matter-of-factly.
By then the duchess will probably be gone anyway,’ she thought. And this proud duke will probably die, unable to endure loss.’
Five years later, Rosana Aubrey dies, and two years after that, Shackol Aubrey dies too.
‘My own time left is maybe six or seven years,’ Anisha thought. Before she was sent back, the side effect of an experiment made ancient runes spread over her body and kill her before seven years passed.
‘A ticking time bomb,’ she thought — nobody knew which bomb would go off first.
“All right, I’ll remember,” Shackleton said more seriously than before.
Anisha snapped out of her thoughts, looked at him for a moment, then bowed her waist.
“Well, I’ll go! Have a nice day, Father!” she called cheerily.
Thud. The door closed behind her without a second thought.
“Huh!” Shackleton couldn’t help exclaiming. Was she really leaving like that?
But she did — and she didn’t come back. Pedro, who was nearby, moved forward to clear the tray. Shackelford frowned.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I thought you didn’t like it, so I was going to take it away and dispose of it. Maybe we can have it as a snack?” Pedro said, smiling softly.
“Put it down,” Shackleford ordered.
“Oh? I took it away because you seemed displeased,” Pedro said, puzzled.
“Just put it down and leave. I’m tired,” Shackleford said.
Pedro smiled and bowed. “I’ll bring some more tea.” He left. When he returned to clean up, the plates on the tray were empty.
I did my best making it; maybe it just wasn’t to his taste,’ Anisha thought. She’d tried to please the picky, eccentric scientist, after all.
‘Nobles are different,’ she mused. He’d grown up eating only the best ingredients prepared by top chefs — maybe her cooking did seem rough to him.
Leaving the duke’s study while swallowing her disappointment, someone stepped in front of her.
She looked up and saw a boy — green hair, violet eyes, sharp features — a small replica of Duke Aubrey. He looked around thirteen.
He smiled a little, but his eyes didn’t smile. He looked like someone pretending to be polite.
“You’re the stand-in,” he said.
So you’re the someone-else, she thought: Winston Aubrey. The duke’s only heir, a boy so like his father he could be a mini-copy. (Later, the family is destroyed, and that guy wanders as a knight, meets the green-powered heroine, etc. — but anyway.)
Her head throbbed for a moment. She shook it to clear the white flashes at the edge of her vision and forced a greeting.
“Hello.”
She didn’t want to engage, but didn’t want to be rude either.
“You look tacky no matter what you wear,” he sneered.
She said, keeping her cool.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“Hmm.” She gave a noncommittal answer. Inos clearly didn’t like that and glanced at her with contempt.
“They said you brought a kid to be my sister, so I wondered what kind — and you’re just plain,” he judged.
She let his assessment hang there for a moment and then tilted her head, unimpressed. “Done with your review? Can I go now?”
“…That’s rude,” he snapped.
“Are you full of words?” she shot back.
Inos looked ready to pounce. She wasn’t here to beg for anyone’s attention.
“I won’t grovel to you,” she said. “I won’t act humbly just because you’re the duke’s son and heir.”
“You’d better. Otherwise, I could have you kicked out right now,” he hissed.
“You wouldn’t. If I disappeared, the duchess would be devastated. You really want that?” she said.
Ino’s eyes widened. He moved to grab her by the collar. At that moment, a soft voice from behind called, “Anette?”
His hand froze. The tone made him stop.
Keeping her face neutral, Anette — that was the name she used — spun and ran to Rosana Aubrey.
“Mother!” she cried.
“Anette!” Rosana said, bending to scoop her up in a warm hug.
“Come here too, Inos,” Rosana said, opening her other arm.
Ino blushed faintly and, despite his grumpy face, stepped forward and let himself be pulled into his mother’s embrace. The proud attitude he’d been showing was gone. He was a shy boy who didn’t know what to do with his mother’s affection.
Anette watched, a little surprised. The haughty pride was gone; only a kid remained.
“Have you greeted each other properly?” Rosana asked.
“Yes!” Anette answered brightly — more a flustered reply than a formal greeting.
“What were you doing? I saw Inos reaching toward you…” Rosana asked, a little curious.
Anette flinched, then kept going.
“Brother was just trying to brush the dust out of my hair. My hair’s long, so sometimes dust gets on it!” she blurted.
“Right…?” she added, turning to Inos and linking arms with him, smiling sweetly. Inos stiffened.
She sent him a look: ‘Play along, quickly.’
He glanced away, then murmured, “…Yes, there was dust in your hair.”
“See, what a wonderful big brother,” Anette said, and Rosana gently smoothed Inos’s hair.
“Are you feeling okay, Mother?” Anette asked.
“Yes, I’m better today,” Rosana said, smiling. The ryehwa tea seemed to be helping.
“Don’t overdo it,” Inos said, a little concerned. Rosanna chuckled and said she’d be careful — she was just visiting the duke. “Inos, please take care of your sister.”
Ino nodded in that rare, quiet way. “I will.”
“Brother, show me around the mansion!” Anette said, bright and eager. Inos hesitated a moment, then nodded.
Rosana patted both their cheeks fondly and went into the study. Anette and Inos walked down the corridor. When they’d gotten far enough from the study, Anette unlinked her arm from his and thought, ‘I’m tired; I should head to my room.’
As she passed him, Inos suddenly asked in a low voice, weight behind it, “Do you really think you can become part of our family, doing what you just did?”
