Chapter 78
“Do you really not know?”
“I told you I don’t know.”
The owner bit her lip and abruptly turned her head away.
Bendia was left speechless watching the café owner maintain her denials. She had come out of the restroom before Sharhwina and had run into the owner who’d just opened up for the day. Bendia quietly said Seraasil’s name, and the owner had reacted as if she knew it.
So far, so good; Bendia thought she’d found the right person and followed the owner into the manager’s office to talk for a moment. But suddenly the owner changed her attitude completely and stuck to pretended ignorance, insisting she had never heard the name.
“I told you I was shocked. The address of this place was written down. It’s important.”
“I told you I don’t know!” the owner snapped. She hugged her arms to her chest like someone frightened, her face pale.
Bendia didn’t back down. She was the one who had seen Seraasil’s last moments; she was the one who had buried her and offered a prayer for her rest. That was why she had to find out what Seraasil had wanted to say—because that’s what Seraasil wanted.
“Seraasil is dead. I think it’s because of this.”
“……”
“She couldn’t even entrust it to her family. Do you know where she found the note? It was sewn into the hem of her skirt. It was almost impossible to find.”
“……”
“She must have known she was going to die. She must have known this would happen. If so, what was so urgent that she’d go to such lengths to tell someone?”
As Bendia spoke the owner’s face twisted painfully. Tears welled up and threatened to fall.
“The last time I saw Seraasil she looked very uneasy. She was fearful, as if someone were chasing her.”
Bendia fell silent for a moment after saying that. The owner in front of her was clutching her chest, sobbing quietly.
The owner wept without making a sound.
Bendia swallowed the lump in her throat, waiting for the woman to calm down.
After a few moments the owner stopped crying and looked at Bendia with reddened eyes.
“……Where is Seraasil buried? Did you send her off properly? Did you—did you at least give her to her family…?”
“No. They had no authority. They had removed Seraasil from the registry long ago. I buried her myself. She’s in the communal cemetery of the Rims territory in the south.”
“Seraasil… she wanted to be a research assistant at the Mana Tower. I’ve been watching over her—she was like a childhood friend and neighbor to me.”
The owner went on to tell Bendia about Seraasil. At first Seraasil was ecstatic to have become a researcher at the Mana Tower, but as time went on she grew more and more exhausted. Eventually she regretted working at the Tower.
She suffered repeated panic attacks in a single day and grew afraid of some unknown thing.
“One day, she suddenly came to me like someone being chased and handed me something. She begged me.”
“And then?”
“I asked what it was, but Seraasil wouldn’t explain. She said she couldn’t tell me any more and that I mustn’t know. If I knew, I’d die… Shortly after Seraasil left, they came.”
“Them? Who?”
“I don’t know for sure. They wore robes and pulled hoods over their heads. They came in the middle of the night without a sound, trashed my café and my office, and ransacked everything. They put a knife to my throat and asked if I had met Seraasil, or if she had given me anything.”
At that moment Bendia understood why the owner had pretended not to know.
It was a caution born of experience and fear. The owner had been careful, and Bendia had broken through that caution.
“No, I told them I didn’t know. I really didn’t. I kept it safe. This is—”
The owner touched the pin she had stuck in her hair. It was an ordinary snap pin.
“I don’t know exactly what it’s for. But Seraasil said one thing: go to the Mana Tower. You’ll understand there.”
She snapped open the pin and handed it to Bendia.
Bendia took it and, on closer inspection, saw that the underside of the pin was shaped like a key.
If it’s stuck in hair or the pin is closed, you’d never notice.
If going to the Tower would make sense of it, that meant whatever this key fit must be at the Tower.
“She must have expected they’d come for me too. So she made it in a way that wouldn’t be noticeable.”
A person who ran from the Tower had actually hidden something in the Tower. She must have thought there was no safe place outside the Tower. “The darkest place is under the lamp,” perhaps.
“Thank you for telling me.”
Bendia clenched the pin in her fist.
Now she had to find a way into the Mana Tower.
But how?
“Ugh—!”
Lying on her bed, unable to think of a proper method, Bendia thrashed about.
Ah!
“Should I try to get Sharhwina to come around?”
She sat bolt upright. Sharhwina was a saint with magic—she should be able to come and go freely at the Tower, right?
“Tch… no chance. Totally busted.” Bendia fell back onto the bed as the café incident from earlier returned to her mind. Sharhwina wouldn’t do it. At the end she had glared at Bendia so fiercely it had made her angry.
She blinked slowly.
When she left after finishing her business at the café, Denros had grabbed her. He had caught her sleeve with two fingers—so weak that a slight shake would make his grip fall away. It looked like he had no right to hold her, yet he still did; it was as if, once she pulled away, he would have no choice but to let go.
When she asked why he’d held onto her, he bit his lips as if he had something to say and, unexpectedly, asked after her well-being.
“How are you doing over there?”
The question sounded like someone asking if anyone was bothering her, in other words, “Is someone harassing you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I was curious, impudently.”
‘Impudence.’ It was a word that absolutely did not suit Denros—someone who surely had never used such a phrase in his life.
He was a man recognized by the Emperor; a divorced past could never be a blemish on him. They were likely trying to match him up with a princess or a saint.
There was a reason Bendia had started thinking of Denros so much recently. When she had returned from the Rose Count’s household after her divorce, the Saxon Marquis family had been forced upon her as a marriage match. She had fled because she couldn’t marry the old marquis; then she heard news of his death at the manor.
The date was the same day she had fled—the day the marquis was supposed to visit the Count’s residence.
“Is that a coincidence?”
The obituary in the paper had said the marquis died in a carriage accident.
Carriage accidents happened sometimes. Her parents had also died in one.
But the timing was… suspicious. And more news: the former duke and duchess—Bendia’s in-laws—were driven out of the ducal manor and sent down to a shabby northern country estate.
Why?
“Creepy.”
Her head hurt and she buried her face in the soft, expensive mattress. Money is wonderful—so plush it felt like her whole body was sinking in and her headache eased.
Knock, knock.
“Yes?”
“It’s Miss. Linda.”
“Come in.”
Half-buried in the mattress, Bendia turned her head slightly as Linda opened the door.
“I found the Mei you mentioned.”
“Really?”
At that news Bendia scrambled out of bed.
“She’s in the parlor on the first floor now.”
Following Linda, Bendia went downstairs and hurried into the parlor, where she found the familiar face awkwardly sitting there.
Everyone withdrew and Bendia approached Mei.
“Mei.”
“M-Madam…! No, I’m sorry—Miss.”
Mei’s habitual title slipped out and she hastily corrected herself in shock. Maybe she was embarrassed? She trembled like a calf dragged into the slaughterhouse.
Bendia looked at the much thinner, worn-looking Mei with pity and took a step closer.
“Mei. How have you—?”
“I’m so sorry, Miss! I’ve committed a grave sin!”
At that moment Mei, suddenly pale, prostrated herself and begged for forgiveness.
