Chapter 140
“Ah? How did you know?”
“Hey, Noah!”
Noah responded instinctively, and Cordelia, startled, lightly tapped his arm.
For a brief moment, it seemed like they were exchanging confused glances, but soon both nodded toward each other.
“…Because it’s you, Ari.”
Then, the children approached each of my ears from the left and right, forming their hands into little circles and holding them against my ears.
“Everyone’s got it wrong… that actually belongs to the fairy lady.”
“Fairy… lady?”
“Yeah. So what happened was…”
Noah and Cordelia’s story, starting with some hesitation, continued for quite a while.
It only strengthened my conviction that the day I could reach my goal wasn’t far off.
A Familiar Strangeness
The next day, early morning, after the commotion had died down.
Chirp, tweet!
The suddenly warm wind carried the birdsong into the room.
“Hey, that’s it, Jenny.”
“Mm…”
“Take a closer look. It really is enchanted, right? Hmm?”
…If only the birds would chirp louder.
Jenny, unsure what to do with her pounding heart, stepped closer to the object Iris was pointing at.
‘Oh no, what do I say? What do I do?’
Wait, how did Iris know?
Jenny didn’t know what to do, so for now, she just stared quietly at the invitation lying neatly on the nightstand.
[You are invited to the Spring of the North.]
That was it.
The object in front of Jenny was the invitation she had reluctantly made under Edward’s orders.
It was designed to activate magic the moment Iris touched it.
That was also why Iris had come early this morning and brought Jenny to her room.
“Isn’t it just an invitation?”
Jenny tried to play it cool.
In fact, the exterior of the invitation was a subtle cream color, looking no different from a normal invitation.
“What are you talking about? It’s super suspicious. Can’t you feel… that strange aura lingering around it?”
However, Iris’s sharp remark hit the mark, and Jenny hesitated.
‘Huh, how did she detect the magical wave?’
As before, Iris was strangely perceptive at critical moments.
…Still, I’ll just pretend I don’t know for now.
There was no other way.
“Yes, but… only the person who cast the magic knows what kind it is…”
Which was Jenny herself, but if she admitted it, she had no idea what punishment Edward might give her.
According to what Olivia had subtly said, Edward’s mood had been very low lately.
Because of those opposing the succession at this spring ball, he was even more irritable than usual.
‘Sorry, Iris.’
Pretending to carefully examine the invitation, Jenny shook her head at Iris.
“I still don’t know what magic it has. I guess you’d have to open it to see… Ah!”
“What kind of reckless thing is that, Jenny!”
Iris slapped Jenny sharply on the back.
“You have a complete magical safety disorder! When you don’t know what magic something has, you should never touch it!”
“B-But… it’s just an invitation, it can’t be dangerous…”
“Invitations are the sneakiest and most dangerous! Ugh, you only know how to make magic tools, but you don’t know the world at all!”
Iris, fussing, eventually pushed Jenny aside.
“Can we at least store it somewhere with magic so no one can touch it?”
“Possible, but…”
This small favor should be okay, right?
Edward’s orders had only been to make the invitation and place it in Iris’s room.
After a moment of hesitation, Jenny nodded toward the invitation, and it floated gently off the nightstand.
“Wow, Jenny, you can make objects float just by looking at them?”
“Ah, haha… It’s paper, so it’s light.”
Seeing Iris’s sparkling blue eyes full of curiosity, Jenny stuffed the invitation into her pocket-sized storage space.
Whether she had properly completed the task or not… it was hard to say.
“Hmm, can I really keep this…”
“Hmm, I wonder why he sent the invitation to me…”
As Jenny gazed out the window in thought, Iris also fell into contemplation.
Chirp! Tweet!
Only the birds outside made noise for a while.
“No matter how I think about it, this invitation… hmm. Yeah, that’s what it seems like.”
Breaking the silence with a mutter, Iris hopped onto the windowsill.
“I can’t let this slide!”
“Ah, Ari? Where are you going?”
Jenny reached out, flustered, but was a step too late.
Iris jumped out the window, leaving Jenny no time to ask more.
“I’m going to discuss this!”
“I-I-I can help too… right, I mean… huh, she’s already gone…”
Really, this is fine… right?
Jenny awkwardly withdrew her hand back into the air.
‘Olivia, I really want to see you. I’ll just go back… sniff!’
“Vacation?”
Who? The butler?
You mean Edwin?
…My ally?
“Who decides that!”
“Since it’s a vacation… maybe it’s at his discretion? Haha.”
In front of Edwin’s desk in the office.
Seeing Rhonda smile gracefully, I blinked blankly.
‘No wonder. Something felt off since the morning.’
On Edwin’s desk, instead of him, there were only piles of papers, and no warmth of someone having been there.
‘Doesn’t feel good.’
I went back to the early morning, less than an hour since waking.
Early dawn, the suspicious invitation next to me, and Jenny acting even more suspicious.
From her reactions when I pretended not to notice, it was clear she knew about the invitation.
She had some kind of connection with whoever sent it.
Moreover, according to my almost ghost-like intuition, the sender was…
‘Edward’s half-brother. The one I saw at the casino.’
In front of Jenny, I pretended not to know, but I could sense the mana waves lingering around the invitation.
‘It was just like the scroll my master used to use.’
I had used it occasionally in urgent situations, so I remembered it well.
The intensity of the wave, though, was far stronger than anything I’d experienced before, so I stayed cautious.
It also seemed tied to this man’s family issues, so I intended to discuss it first.
‘But he disappeared without saying anything to me?’
And furthermore…
“The fairy lady said it. The Star of India was the gem in front of her the moment she fell in love. That’s why that day she gave it to us…”
There was also a lot I wanted to say about the Star of India.
‘Vacation at a time like this? No, he should have told me!’
This was completely a breach of contract!
The contract with him, which I had stashed away, came to mind for the first time in a while.
‘I even imagined a future with him!’
If needed, I could retract my retirement declaration and do just one last thing together… ugh.
A wave of betrayal came over me.
‘He must have taken vacation immediately yesterday, right after work?’
No wonder, after we completed that difficult task together, he didn’t even show his face to me.
Because he only cared about the Star of India, I thought he’d be busy focusing on it the moment he returned, but that wasn’t the case.
“He said if we treasure it, we’ll meet someone like that someday. But… we must return it at that time.”
“The fairy lady’s magic would also end at that time…”
‘If the twins knew what information I got, their hearts would be pounding…’
I thought about having a commemorative tea time together…
But the surge of betrayal subsided a bit, replaced by lingering sadness.
Soon, creeping worry arose.
‘…Something might have happened to Edwin before the invitation reached me.’
Since the sender was human, they might have made a move on Edwin as well…
“Um, Iris?”
At that moment, Rhonda, looking awkward, intervened with a smile.
“As you know, there’s a lot going on at the mansion, so I’ll just…”
“Wait, Rhonda!”
I quickly grabbed Rhonda’s arm as she tried to leave after finishing her business.
“Did the butler mention anywhere, like… any vacation plans… or anything like that?”
