Chapter 53
I touched the pendant that always hung around my neck but had never once rung.
He’d said that I could contact him anytime with this when we parted ways, but I’d never actually done so.
Were we really the kind of people who should be in touch privately? I’d think that, then decide he was probably doing fine, and put the pendant down again.
But this time, I really had something to say. It only took tapping it five times, but somehow that felt incredibly difficult. I rolled the pendant around in my palm for a long time, hesitating.
‘Still, I need to tell him. It’s an official reason anyway, not personal.’
Once I made up my mind, I tapped the pendant quickly. For a long while, nothing happened.
Well, it wasn’t like there was any guarantee the Grand Duke actually carried this thing around.
‘He probably tossed it in a drawer and forgot about it.’
Or maybe he was just extremely busy with the plague situation. That was his personality, after all.
I was about to set the pendant aside, thinking he’d contact me when he needed to, when it suddenly flickered and began to glow.
“Why.”
“Ah, Your Grace!”
“Why.”
“There’s… there’s a plague in the North, right? Are you okay?”
“So you called me to say something useless. I’m hanging up.”
“No, no! It’s important! A boy came back from delivering a letter to the North, and now he’s sick!”
I spoke in a rush, blurting out everything that came to mind before he could cut the connection.
“What? He went all the way there?”
“Yes! So, um, it might spread here too! I thought we should share information!”
If I said I was worried about him, he’d probably end the conversation right there. But the boy was really sick, and if the plague spread through the capital, it would be disastrous.
“Did you take the boy to a doctor?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Haa… that’s troublesome.”
The Grand Duke sighed deeply.
“You’ll need a sorcerer. Priests won’t help. No, wait… forget it. I’ll come.”
“You’ll come here?”
I blurted out in shock.
“The North has many monsters, so magic is advanced there. But in the capital, very few can handle something like this. Wasting money on the wrong help will just kill the boy. I’ll come and see for myself. Don’t worry, it’s not contagious.”
“Wait, what do you mean, not contagious? What is—”
The light of the pendant went out.
Of course. Not a single thing about him had changed in the three months since I last saw him—always cutting me off after saying what he wanted, never explaining properly, just giving orders.
“Ugh, I have so much to do already… but I can’t just leave a kid to die. Fine, fine. Polly!”
“Yes?”
“I’ve got somewhere to be. Please gather information and sort out the promotional materials for Reuke.”
Barely five minutes after stepping into the office, I was already heading back to that same back alley.
It had only been an hour since I’d left, so hopefully nothing serious had happened yet. But since he told me to check, I couldn’t ignore it.
“I gave him medicine. Maybe his fever’s gone down by now…”
That’s what I thought—until I opened the door to that rickety shack again.
“Wha—what…?”
The boy’s body had turned an ominous bluish-black. I rushed closer, and his ragged breathing filled my ears.
Just an hour ago, he’d been energetic enough to pickpocket me. How could he deteriorate so fast?
“Your Grace! The boy—he can’t breathe properly!”
“Has his skin turned blue?”
“Y-yes!”
“Keep him warm for now. Even if I use all my magic, it’ll take two days to get there.”
“What if he dies before then?”
“He won’t fully die for at least a week.”
He said something terrifyingly casual. Then the pendant went dark again.
I wrapped the boy in my robe, covering most of him, and struggled to support his weight as I carried him out. But I couldn’t get a single carriage to stop.
“Is that… a patient?”
“My younger brother. He’s just not feeling well—it’s not contagious.”
“Hmm.”
No one wanted to risk catching anything, so the coachmen all refused to take us. The boy was limp as a log, and sweat poured down my back from the effort. I pleaded with every passing carriage until finally, halfway home, one driver reluctantly agreed to take us.
“Thank you. Really. I promise it’s not contagious.”
I handed the coachman ten silver coins. His eyes went wide—ten silvers could feed a family for a month.
“You’re too kind, miss. May luck follow you too.”
By the time we reached home, the boy felt heavier than ever. Two strong servants carried him inside and laid him in a guest room.
“It’s not contagious,” I told them firmly.
But the servants were clearly terrified by the boy’s condition.
“If it is contagious, you can take half my estate. I’ll write the document myself.”
“N-no, no need, miss. We believe you. It’s just… hard to look at.”
“Take care of him. Turn him over often, keep him warm.”
“Yes, miss.”
After washing off the sweat, my whole body went limp with exhaustion. I couldn’t think of anything—there had to be some solution for the Reuke project, but my mind was blank.
I sank into the bathwater, absently fidgeting with the pendant.
“Hurry up and come explain this, you damn man… What am I, your subordinate?”
There wasn’t a single thing about him that didn’t annoy me. Three months of silence, and when I finally called out of concern, he just bossed me around again. Unbelievable. He probably still didn’t have a single friend in the North. I could bet on it!
“I call out of worry, and he says it’s ‘useless’… that’s why I never went to the North.”
Well, that and being busy. But still—he was infuriating.
“Haa…”
While Melias was fretting, Crown Prince Alkais was in an excellent mood.
He was sitting across from Katia, raising a glass in toast.
“You’ve finally done something useful for once.”
“More than just a little useful, I’d say.”
Katia smiled smugly, clearly pleased with herself.
“But he’ll soon realize it isn’t a plague. That man’s skilled in magic.”
“Even so, there’s little he can do. What can one man accomplish alone?”
“If he knows the cause, he can break the curse easily. That’s why we should eliminate him before he does.”
“If he dies before lifting it, we can just say the plague killed him. Ah, come to think of it…”
The Crown Prince narrowed his eyes at Katia.
“I heard your brother and father are up north?”
“Yes. They had business at the mines there.”
The prince nodded in satisfaction.
“Well done, then. Your mother will be grieved, though.”
Katia let out a short, breathy laugh—then burst into giggles she couldn’t control.
“Ah, Your Highness, forgive my rudeness. But I simply can’t stop laughing.”
“I’ll let it pass today. It’s a good day for me, too.”
Katia kept laughing, shoulders shaking—half laughing, half crying.
“They said this kind of thing could be cured with magic…”
Three days had passed since I first contacted him. The Grand Duke still hadn’t come.
I’d searched the capital and finally found a magician. The boy’s skin had turned ashen gray, and I was terrified we’d soon be removing a corpse from the guest room.
Even at work, I couldn’t concentrate. Meanwhile, customers at Forest Theater were dwindling.
“W-who told you that, miss?”
“I can’t say. But we can’t let the boy die, can we?”
“B-but… fevers like this aren’t really magical in nature…”
The magician I’d paid a fortune to bring here just stared helplessly between me and the boy.
“Melias, what’s going on?”
Reuke burst into the room. The magician’s eyes went wide when he saw him.
“N-no way…”
“Why are you even here? You said you could fix this.”
The magician barely heard me—he was staring at Reuke like he’d seen a ghost.
“Then you must be Lady Melias Warren! My goodness, I’ve heard all about you. So many troubles lately—you must be under such strain.”
He looked between us, babbling nonsense. Great. I’d brought him to save the boy, and he was utterly useless.
“‘Troubles’? What are you talking about? Besides those stupid rumors that Shacht spread about my sister, what else?”
“Ah, n-no, that’s all I know.”
“Then stop saying pointless things.”
“Melias, calm down,” Reuke said gently.
“Can you fix the child?” he asked the magician.
The man looked pained and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can. It’s completely different from what I expected. I thought it was a minor curse, but whether it’s disease or curse… I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Then leave.”
“Uh, my consultation fee—”
“How much.”
I stepped in front of Reuke and fished out my purse. I wanted to kick the man out, but not in front of Reuke.
“Thank you,” he muttered and left.
As I opened the door to see him out, a shadow loomed in the doorway.
“Ah.”
The magician froze. Standing there was Leon, tall and grim as a statue, watching him.
He frowned at me. His first words were:
“I told you this would be useless. You never listen.”
“And you always talk like you’re perfect.”
“Where’s the boy? Let me see.”
I led Leon to the guest room. He looked at the child, then pulled a small pouch from his cloak and began working.
He took out a black feather, a white feather, and a shard of glass. With a few motions, the feathers and other materials sank into the shard as if absorbed.
“What are you doing?”
“Would you even understand if I told you?”
He replied curtly, opened the window, and let sunlight stream through the glass onto the boy.
Slowly, color returned to the child’s skin. His breathing evened out.
“Haa… I thought we were about to deal with a corpse.”
“It’s a curse. The entire North is under one.”
Leon sighed heavily.
“Could it be… Katia?”
