There wasn’t much to begin with, and it was a snack chosen with care. Still, Renea found herself mindlessly twirling her spoon, letting it clang against the rim of the brass dish.

  Ailn, not even pretending to work, raised an eyebrow. “I thought you liked yogurt with honey,” he said.

  “I do,” Renea replied, raising the dish to eye-level and admiring the ornate snowflakes embossed into the metal. When she was Saintess apparent, she’d dined with fancy silverware all the time. Lately, most of her meals had come in tin. “I’m just not that hungry.”

  “That’s why I had them bring something light,” Ailn said. “Ennieux’s been bothering me to make sure you eat.”

  “I am eating,” Renea said.

  So she said, but she set the brass dish down.

  “How about some scones?” Ailn asked. “Sir Goodfellow helped bake them.”

  “Sir Good—what?” Renea glared. “You had a knight—”

  “I said I’d remember him,” Ailn shrugged. “And I did. Now, I’ll really remember him—for his unexpectedly great baking.”

  “Just… whatever,” Renea sighed. She wasn’t in the mood for an argument, or to be pressured into eating.

  So she feigned interest in the rows of books lining the shelves of the ducal office, gazing at them through half-lidded eyes. Truthfully, it was for the better that Ailn had called her down here. After yet another brief energetic stint, she’d lately found herself spending much of her day in bed again.

  She wasn’t sure why she was here, though.

  “...Any reason you withdrew your request to attend Aldous’s execution?” Ailn asked.

  “Sophie and I talked…” Renea said. “That’s all. She said a few things that disturbed me and…”

  Her sentence cut short, and her brows drew gently together while her eyes delicately creased at the edges “... I didn’t want to hurt her,” Renea finished softly.

  “It’s your decision,” Ailn leaned back, and raked his fingers through his hair. “As long as you don’t regret it.”

  Renea wasn’t sure how she’d feel about it, once the dust settled.

  The face of death seemed to follow her as of late. The grim reaper that had replaced Lumitheia, the skulls stacked high in the ossuary; Noué’s mummy caught in a scream, and Ailn’s distant, glassy eyes while his gasping grew quieter.

  Always playing the Saintess, and watching Sophie’s miracles bring knights back from the brink, Renea had inexplicably deceived even herself. She’d imagined herself a veteran of the battlefield, at ease with death; she thought she’d mastered her fear.

  Sophie wanted to punish Aldous with a lonely death. Renea was certain this was a mistake, a moral misstep that couldn’t be undone.

  Yet she also felt if she gave Aldous his last rites in spite of Sophie’s feelings, then she’d be leaving Sophie alone with her mistake for the rest of time. If… if she refrained now, then at least the two of them could make this mistake together.

  “Are you coming to Sussuro with me?” Ailn asked.

  “What?” Renea blinked, brought out of her thoughts by Ailn’s question. “Oh—yeah! Of course. I want to—I want to find the treasure.”

  “Alright then.”

  She felt just a hint of doubt in the way that Ailn slowly nodded, and for some reason that made her terribly anxious. “It was a fluke last time. Even if she pulls the same stunt… really, how many corpses can she have?” Renea tried to laugh it off.

  “Hmm…” Ailn tapped his thumb to his chin, thinking something over. “We’ll have to leave a few days early then.”

  “Why?”

  “If you’re coming by carriage.”

  “I can ride a horse,” Renea said.

  “...Really? Huh.” Ailn blinked a few times. “Then were you always riding a carriage out of decorum?”

  “No,” Renea shook her head. “Sophie’s afraid of horses.”

  A few knocks came at the door, interrupting their conversation, and Ailn beckoned whoever it was in.

  “Just in time,” Ailn said.

  Ailn called them in, and Sir Goodfellow stepped inside, leading two prisoners, their wrists bound tightly in manacles. Dahlia and Tuckerson—the two sibling reincarnators—came in with a myriad of emotions fluttering across their faces as they took in the grandeur of the ducal office: fear, envy, a trace of guarded elation towards their temporary reprieve from imprisonment.

  Sir Goodfellow, on the other hand, had one emotion on his face. Scorn.

  “I’ve retrieved the prisoners you asked for, Your Highness,” Goodfellow said. His voice was aggrieved, but his words were perfectly polite.

  “Much appreciated, Goodfellow,” Ailn said, grinning. “Take your leave now. The scones were excellent.”

  Renea swore the knight’s eyes were about to pop out in anger. But he merely nodded and walked out of the office, the gnashing of his teeth as loud as his footsteps.

  With the knight who’d led them here gone, the two prisoners’ anxiety seemed to be getting the better of them.

  “Are… are we being executed?” Tuckerson asked. Dahlia next to him veered her head toward her companion in a panic, and the color drained from her face.

  Both started trembling.

  But Ailn just leaned back casually. “Nothing like that. If that were the case, why would I bring you here?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

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  “Then…”

  “We’re just gonna have another heart-to-heart,” Ailn said.

  Ailn watched their faces carefully, gauging their reactions. He let the silence hang for a minute, before resuming.

  “This talk stays among us,” Ailn said. “If you two are honest here, then I’ll think about making use of you.”

  “As in… letting us out of prison?” Dahlia asked hopefully.

  “Being the duke has its perks,” Ailn shrugged. “I told you it was out of my hands last time. Things are different now.”

  Renea wrinkled her nose, eyeing the two criminals warily. She didn’t say anything, but Ailn was certain she wasn’t happy about the idea.

  Getting up from his desk, Ailn approached the two prisoners at an easy pace.

  “Want a scone?” He caught Dahlia’s hungry glance at the pastries, and held the platter up to her manacled wrists.

  Rather than reach for one, Dahlia gave him a shy look. It seemed like she was trying to seduce him again—ruby eyes or not.

  “...Well, since you’re both being so cooperative,” Ailn shrugged and hand-fed Dahlia a scone. It would have looked cute if it weren’t for all the crumbs falling to the floor.

  “Mmmff.. neverm’nd, it’s f-fine!” Dahlia blushed while she shook her head, getting more crumbs all over her tunic.

  “You sure?” Ailn poked her cheek with another scone.

  “Quit it!” Dahlia snapped. “I didn’t think it would look that stupid!”

  Tuckerson snorted at her terrible attempt at seduction.

  Ailn, meanwhile, paced over to his desk and pulled out the obsidian jar. Renea, who hadn’t yet seen it, shuddered as she saw the miasma billow out.

  “Look. We caught your merchant friend Geoff in some shady stuff,” Ailn said, his eyes turning serious. “It was down in the catacombs, near where your criminal ring was operating. Tell me the truth. Were you involved?”

  “W-we don’t even know what the hell that is,” Tuckerson stuttered. Dahlia just shook her head lamely.

  “...Are you sure? I’m going to be real with you guys. We’ve got reason to believe you two were involved in the production of this substance,” Ailn walked up slowly, bringing the jar with him, the waft of the miasma coming uncomfortably close to their faces. “...That you were providing ‘ingredients.’”

  His face hardened. “If you give me information, I can prevent your execution.”

  Dahlia’s head shaking got faster. “I don’t know what Geoff said but w-we didn’t do it! We’re just thieves! We don’t… even know how to make that weird s-sludge…” Her stuttering started to get more panicked, and her eyes started darting to her brother in fear. “I-if Benny did something, h-he didn’t know! H-he’s always getting pushed around, Your Highness, I swear…”

  “I didn’t do jack, Lily,” Tuckerson said through gritted teeth. “You’re making me sound guilty.”

  Ailn stared at them for a moment, before heaving a sigh of relief, and putting the stopper back on the jar.

  “We’re good here. I don’t think you were involved,” Ailn said. “... Just answer this for me. Do you two remember dealing with a middle-aged woman with a limp? One of the hostel owners—name’s Maria?”

  “Yeah!” Dahlia nodded her head vigorously, all ready to snitch. “She was one of the loan sharks. That hag was a total vampire.”

  “...As in?”

  “I mean, 2.5 percent a week? That’s nuts!”

  “...Right,” Ailn said. He’d been looking for something else. “Guess you really don’t know anything related to the jar.”

  He paused, fiddling with his wrist for a moment in thought. “You guys were definitely cooperative, so I could have your sentences reduced...”

  “W-wait! Hold up! I thought you were gonna release us!” Dahlia piped up.

  “It would look pretty awful if one of my first acts of duke was to release prisoners,” Ailn frowned. “You’d have to give me a good reason.”

  “You’re doing that crazy save the world bull, right?” Dahlia’s eyes were pleading. “Y-you know, if we‘re talking about ruby eyes… there was someone else we met.”

  “...Who?” Ailn’s eyes sharpened.

  “A woman,” Dahlia said. “She’s the one who coaxed us into trying to steal that portrait!”

  “Do you know why she wanted the portrait?” Ailn asked.

  “Same reason as everyone else, right?” Dahlia, seeing how eager Ailn was for answers, slipped into an eager attitude herself.

  “She wanted to find the vault,” Tuckerson said. “That dead artist’s vault.”

  “She wanted to find Noué’s last hundred paintings?” Ailn asked.

  “...Doubt it,” Tuckerson said honestly. “Didn’t seem like an art lover. I don’t know what she was looking for.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “She always had a mask on… like the kind you see at operas. And a hood,” Tuckerson said.

  Closing his eyes to think and adjusting his imaginary watch, Ailn kept peppering them with questions.

  “Can you make contact again?”

  “M-maybe! Or maybe not…” Dahlia averted her eyes. “She said she’d find us once we stole it.”

  “How exactly did you meet her?”

  “She… she caught us,” Dahlia mumbled sullenly. “Reminded us we were nobodies.”

  “The two of us figured out young we had these special eyes,” Tuckerson explained. “I could always go and implant these ideas in people if I said ‘em enough… and Lily could trick patsies into thinking she was cute.”

  “I am cute,” Dahlia snarled.

  “Whatever. Don’t interrupt,” Tuckerson acted like she was the rude one. “We did all kindsa schemes. We were pretty rich for a while, you know. Made a big name for ourselves. But Dahlia here…”

  “God! Would you quit blaming me for everything?!” Dahlia kicked his shin hard, which made him stagger and grunt. “This is why girls always dump you! You always point fingers instead of fixing things! So what if I wanted to be a noble, huh?!”

  “...We heard rumors that a down-and-out baroness was selling her title,” Tuckerson said. He settled for a simple wincing glare at Dahlia. “Baroness Vache. From ark-Chelon. Supposedly the last daughter of a ruined family, tired of it all. She lived like a recluse and decided she’d rather have cash than cling to her peerage. ”

  “We kept poking around, and one day,” Tuckerson continued, “some old butler-looking guy hands us an envelope—with the Baroness’s real seal inside. And when we showed up—”

  “Baroness Veche was there. Swooning over this masked woman, who had all these knights,” Dahlia said. “The masked woman told us that some of the gold coins we brought were marked, and proved we’d tricked and robbed merchants.”

  “So, you were blackmailed,” Ailn said.

  “...Sort of,” Dahlia said. She has an uneasy look. “She—she showed us her eyes on purpose. Told us she came from another world like us, and wanted to give us a chance. Told us she needed that artist’s portrait.”

  “She just seemed…” Tuckerson bobbled his head back and forth. “She seemed so important. We’d never met another reincarnator. And her eyes were so bright and beautiful. When we were next to her…”

  “It felt like she was the center of the whole world,” Dahlia said. She looked perturbed by the memory. “It was like we were there for her. Like we existed… for her.”

  “Like you were mind controlled?”

  “Kind of—it was like we were caught up in her story and we accepted we were bit parts,” Dahlia said bitterly. “She had this aura like ‘know your place!’ But you know, Benny studied up and came up with his tunneling plan.”

  “We got a painting that wasn’t the portrait,” Tuckerson said. “But this moron next to me kept insisting we had it, so I couldn’t convince Carlin to go back to the cathedral. And the masked lady never found us again.”

  “W-who cares?” Dahlia mumbled sullenly. “We’re better off without meetin’ her.”

  “...Even though you were so taken with her?” Ailn said.

  “She was definitely a big shot…” Dahlia said. Her tone was reflective, and even a little confused. Then she winced, with a look like she was chewing the inside of her cheek. “We wanted to get into her inner circle so bad. But whenever I think back to our meeting with her… It scares the hell out of me.”

  “Why?” Ailn’s brows furrowed.

  “‘Cause the way she looked at our eyes was creepy,” Dahlia shuddered. “I always got this feeling like—like she wanted them.”