Cracks in the Family

Natalisha hurried to open the wardrobe before Nina could return.

Searching the wardrobe was supposed to be Katahari's job, but she was still clinging to the balcony railing, having just hauled herself up over it and huffing indignantly.

Natalisha clicked her tongue at the sorry sight and turned her gaze to the wardrobe. A hothead with passable disguise skills, at best. Who knew she'd be this useless. I can't leave her in the same room as Joel Smiler again.

None of this would have happened if she'd left the task of escorting Nina to the drawing room to Katahari.

Exi, meanwhile, brushed the wrinkles out of her clothes and peered inside the duffel bag she'd been assigned to search.

"Couldn't even search one bag properly."

"Well, of course not. You were hiding under the bed the whole time," Natalisha replied coldly. Exi said with firm resolve:

"I decline a dog's death."

She shuddered, remembering the daggers that had come flying at her head every single time she'd tried to crawl out from under that bed.

Katahari's agile movements were impressive enough, but the Soltum fox who sent her flying off the balcony was no pushover either.

Joel Smiler might play at being a sickly young lord, but he was a full-fledged member of an intelligence agency — a Soltum operative, no less, an organization where even desk workers had to complete basic espionage training.

The fact that a magitech engineer in nothing but a gown, without a single magitech device on hand, had held his own against Katahari — an active field agent — said everything about Soltum's strength.

Had the gown — the only thing that bothered him, being so exposed — not been an issue, Joel would have won without shedding a single drop of blood, and utterly so.

Katahari, it seemed, felt the same way in her heart of hearts, because she was glaring at Joel's townhouse through gritted teeth.

"Just wait until this mission is over. No — I don't even have to wait until it's over, do I? As long as I don't get caught, who cares. That damned Soltum fox, I'll just—"

"Katahari. Stop thinking with your head empty."

Natalisha rebuked her in an icy tone.

"As long as this townhouse sits in Soltum, you cannot lay a hand on Soltum's people during the mission. Can you truly not wrap your mind around that?"

"Someone's about to get bitten in half without you picking a fight, so if all you're going to do is nag, just shut your mouth."

"Frivolous as ever. You can take the girl out of Lujein—"

"What did you say?"

Katahari bristled and strode toward Natalisha.

Lujein was a nation built on commercial city-states. Naturally, moneylending and cartels flourished there, and its people grew notoriously insular toward outsiders — which was why foreign nations liked to sneer at Lujein as a country of shallow mercenaries.

To Katahari, a Lujein native, it was an outright insult.

Their sharp gazes collided, and the air in the room grew murderous in an instant.

Convinced disaster was about to strike and far too frightened to step between them, Exi simply hurled a marble at Katahari as hard as she could.

Poomf!

Before the purple smoke had even finished spreading, Katahari froze mid-step.

"Wh-what the hell?! Are you insane?!"

As Katahari growled, realizing she'd been hit with paralytic toxin, Exi shook her head.

"You have an anger management problem. I'll refer you to a counselor."

"What you should be introducing me to is a poison potent enough to take out that has-been in one dose!"

"So that's what they mean when they say all bark and no bite."

Natalisha snorted, shut the wardrobe, and walked straight out of Nina's room.

Katahari ground her teeth, thoroughly enraged by the display.

"That Soltum fox first, then that woman. I'm really not letting either of them off."

"Whatever you do, I beg you, do it somewhere I am not."

Exi recoiled a full step away from Katahari, looking faintly ill. Then, while restoring the ransacked duffel bag to its original state before Nina's return, she discovered something.

What's this? Suspicious.

Exi moved to show her find to Katahari — then quietly slipped it into her trouser pocket instead.

Judging by the way Katahari was still glaring at the door and grinding her teeth, conversation seemed unlikely to go anywhere.

Blame falls on the only sane one. Nothing to do but sigh.

Cracks were beginning to spread among the spies masquerading as Nina Bones's family.

After Nina left, Joel glared at his own reflection in the lobby mirror and scowled.

No matter how striking one's features or how solid one's physique, half-undressed in a robe like that, anyone would look utterly ridiculous.

Fleeing the mirror as though it might bite, he changed his clothes first, then pressed a hand to his chest and looked back in the direction of Nina's townhouse.

...Something feels off.

The thought that Nina had seen him at his most pathetic stirred an inexplicable restlessness in him.

It had been mortifying, yes — he could accept that. But why did it come with this creeping unease on top?

Unable to fathom the reason, he stood brooding in the auxiliary workshop until a burst of booming laughter sounded behind him.

"What in the world was that little performance of yours? Up close it's even funnier."

It was Ryan, his senior at the intelligence agency.

Apparently, gowned and all, he'd witnessed the entire spectacle of Joel's arrival at Nina's.

The moment Joel laid eyes on Ryan, his mood cooled so rapidly toward indifference that he decided the earlier anxiety had been a trick of the imagination.

"Back again? If you're so bored with no missions, go play instructor at the training academy."

Joel sat down at the workbench with a mana-stone-studded wrench in hand, and Ryan thumped him on the back, again and again.

"Ah, you've given me the best laugh I've had in months. Who knew Joel Smiler had it in him to be humiliated like that?"

"I believe I told you not to touch me when I'm at the workbench."

The moment Joel set the wrench down and picked up a taser gun, Ryan subtly widened the distance between them.

"Normally you wouldn't hear a word of that with anything but deaf ears, but today your reactions are almost entertaining."

Then he strolled far enough back that the workshop door pressed against his spine, snickering all the while.

Joel was a little startled at himself for being unable to deny a word of it.

So Nina had seen him as the living embodiment of a flawlessly designed magitech tool — that was all well and good. But no matter what side of himself he showed her, as long as she didn't discover he was an operative, what did it matter?

I've shown her nothing but the frail young lord this whole time. Why would today be any different?

Yet thinking it only gnawed at him more.

All this time, he'd done nothing but show Nina one wretched sight after another. Was that really acceptable?

Why wouldn't it be? I genuinely cannot tell what I'm worrying about right now.

Perplexed that the restless feeling refused to dissipate, Joel raked a hand through his soft coppery hair and mussed it thoroughly.

Ryan clicked his tongue at the sight.

"Well, to be fair, even you must have been embarrassed. You're the only man alive who's ever had to arrive before Nina Bones looking like that."

"...The only one?"

"Who else would've suffered that humiliating punishment? Maybe take this as a cue and overhaul that brilliant operational planning of yours."

At Ryan's needling remark, Joel fell briefly into thought.

"Hm. I am the only one...?"

Suddenly his mood lifted entirely, and he turned back to Ryan with a lighter heart.

Ryan blinked at the markedly improved expression, but Joel paid him no mind. He'd simply decided to report what needed reporting.

"It seems I'll have to conduct research on Nina Bones."

"Huh? Nina Bones is a person, isn't she? Hold on. Don't tell me she's a clockwork doll?"

At Ryan's flabbergasted reaction, Joel's face went stern.

"What nonsense is this? Nina Bones is, of course, a person. Has your judgment degraded to that degree?"

Ryan was too flustered to even find the right moment to be offended.

"...You're going to research a human being?"

"Please do not say 'research a human.' It sounds like a worthless enterprise, and I dislike it. I am conducting research on Nina Bones. Not on a human."

At Joel's resolute declaration, Ryan's mouth flapped open in shock.

"Don't tell me you—"

Then he broke off, let out a hollow laugh, and waved a dismissive hand.

"No. The man who's more of a clockwork doll than the actual clockwork dolls would never do that. What a ridiculous fantasy I was having."

Come to think of it again, it was the sort of speculation that only drew a hollow laugh.

"The more intel on Nina Bones, the better. So whether it's research or courtship, dig up whatever you can."

"Research subject and romance, in the same breath? Have some decency."

When Joel looked at him as though he were a piece of garbage, Ryan raised a fist as if to deck him one — then lowered it.

"Ugh. And you watch that insolent mouth of yours."

Checking the clock with an air of complete resignation, he found Joel glancing at his own watch as well.

"Where are you off to now?"

"The next city over. The violinist performing there is this mission's target."

"..."

In a flash, Ryan — Soltum's honey-trap specialist — kicked Joel's chair with everything he had.

"You think just because you don't say it out loud, it doesn't count?! You're calling me indecent with your eyes! Look at your own eyes!"