I Won't Throw You Away

What do I do?

He was already wary of me. There was no chance the sight of another human would put him at ease. Then I remembered a television program I had happened to see as a child, one about adopting abandoned dogs and improving the places they lived. One of them had been in exactly the same state as Sion.

I was sorry. It really did feel like treating him as a dog. But for the moment, this was the only way.

"Sion, do you want to sleep with me?"

He looked bewildered, so I added a little more.

"I mean it. Sleep with me."

I didn't mean it in any strange sense. I wanted him to learn that he could spend a whole night beside me and nothing would happen, and little by little to change the way he saw humans, using myself as the measure. A stratagem of my own, in the name of making humankind seem a little kinder.

As for the Duke, I'll explain it somehow. He loved his daughter far too much. If I dug in, there would be nothing he could do.

"Well? You don't want to be alone either, do you?"

Sion hesitated. Then our eyes met, and the blue of his slowly found its center again. At last he nodded.

"Yeah."

"All right."

I stood. Beyond the window, evening had already come. Between bringing Sion here and dealing with Asad, the hours had flown. Mind and body were both worn thin, but the day was not finished yet.

"I'm sorry, but I think you'll have to eat alone. I'll bring it to you."

"Okay……."

I rose to fetch his meal, and felt a tug near my elbow. Puzzled, I looked down. Sion had taken the very edge of my cuff in a careful grip, and when he spoke he looked ready to cry.

"You won't throw me away?"

So he was still afraid I might abandon him. I looked at him quietly, then nodded with a faint smile.

"I won't."

You'll be the one to leave my side.

It wasn't a lie.

I slowly loosened his hand and stepped out. Once the door was shut, I drew a long breath. Asad, and Sion too—the harder I tried to shake them off, the more tightly they seemed to close around me.

All the same, I asked the kitchen for something simple that Sion could eat, brought it to him, and arranged to dine with the Duke. When I said I wanted to eat together, the Duke, only just returned home, agreed at once.

The same dining room as before. The same seats. The same look in his eyes.

I had seen it already, and still that gaze, steeped in a father's love, showed no sign of fading. It weighed on me enough that I wanted to look away, but tonight I had a purpose of my own.

"I'd like to keep a pet dog."

"Mm. You may. What breed would you like? You need only say the word."

He asked after the breed as if the dog I meant were a real one.

I can hardly answer, a Wolf-kin, can I?

I was sorry for Sion, but there was simply no other way to keep him inside the estate.

"Not that kind of dog. A slave."

"Pfft—!"

The Duke had been drinking his wine, and at my words he broke into a spluttering cough. Ugh. That had gone properly down the wrong pipe. I was sorry, but I couldn't retreat.

"Wh-what are you suddenly—"

"You do know I'm already keeping a dog, don't you?"

"……You mean that beastman slave?"

So he had known after all. Well, of course. Everything that passed through Aine's hands was the Duke's to begin with. There was no way he wouldn't know how it had come to be.

"Yes."

"You wish to buy yet another slave? Aine, these days, regarding the abolition of slavery—"

"That's not it. I want to keep that dog closer to me."

"Closer……?"

"How can a dog I can only see by riding out in a carriage be called mine? So I'd like to use the annex as a doghouse. What do you think, Father?"

"Aine……."

"Please."

Given what I was asking, the Duke did not grant it at once. I looked at him in earnest. He studied me in silence, then nodded.

"Do as you wish."

"……Really?"

What? Why was that so easy? I had expected to have to push at least a few more times. Better than a refusal, certainly, but it had been so simple that I felt oddly dazed.

"I am sorry I can never stay at your side. If this will ease your loneliness, then do as you wish."

But I soon understood why he had agreed so readily. He seemed to think I wanted the dog nearby because I was lonely.

I'm not.

Once I had settled every tie that bound me here, I meant to leave and live somewhere quiet, eating well and wanting for nothing, in peace. There was no reason someone like me should suffer from loneliness.

The truth is, I'm used to it.

Being alone was familiar. While the man who was my father piled up debts in the gambling dens, I spent whole days by myself in that cramped little room. I had never even attended school properly, so I had no friends. There was no cause, at this late date, to suddenly grow lonely, and no need to say so. If the Duke preferred to assume otherwise, I could only be grateful.

And yet a corner of my heart sat wrong. It felt as though I were toying, on a whim, with the heart of a man who loved his daughter.

This time I stirred at my salad, and at last I spoke, quietly.

"……Thank you, Father."

No answer came back through the silence. But when I stole a glance, a small smile had risen on his face.

When the meal was finished, I summoned the head maid and chose several people to clean the annex. I told them to scrub it thoroughly and make it a decent place to live, then went up to my room.

I thought of calling Rita, but waiting felt pointless, so I changed and bathed on my own. The bathroom was the size of a public bathhouse. When I came out, I dried my hair with a magic tool that breathed warm air, changed into something comfortable, and went to Sion's room.

I glanced at the plates on the tray set upon the floor. Fortunately, it seemed he had eaten properly.

"Let's go."

They said the work on the annex would take about two weeks. Until then, we would pass the days in our separate rooms and share a room only at night. At my word, Sion followed behind me.

Back in my room, I put out the lights and spread a warm blanket over the large sofa. Laying him in the bed I used felt like a bit much, and yet I couldn't make him sleep on the floor, so this was the compromise. Fortunately the sofa was broad enough that two sturdy men could have lain on it side by side.

Sion climbed up. I drew the blanket over him, got into my own bed, and set an emergency magic tool by the pillow, just in case.

It hasn't the power of the bell. Still, it ought to be enough to subdue him. Which reminded me—I still needed to get the bell back. Seeking Jay out again just to retrieve it was the last thing I wanted. If I told myself the bell had been the price of my life, the loss stung a little less.

A hush settled over the room.

"Sion, are you asleep……?"

Unable to sleep, I tried his name, carefully. No answer came. Only the even sound of his breathing. He must have been tired today as well; he seemed to have dropped off at once.

Then why can't I?

Asad's words kept catching at me.

What is it he wants to know?

He had said he wanted to stay beside me in order to find it out. I had agreed for the moment, but I didn't understand any of it. In the end I let out a heavy sigh and sat up. My head was too tangled for sleep.

I climbed down from the bed and looked at Sion.

He looks like a puppy.

Curled in on himself, breathing in soft little rumbles, he really did.

"Sion, I'm going for a walk……."

I spoke to him, but he didn't wake. I watched him a moment longer, then drew a shawl over my shoulders and slipped quietly out. I had ordered that no one come up to the second floor, so there was little chance his sleep would break while I was gone.

I circled the main house, ready to turn back at the first sign of trouble, and looked up at the sky. A half-moon.

That night, I think, it was full.

The slum alley, the thugs closing in, and him coming toward me with the moon at his back—the image wavered before my eyes.

"Jay……."

"Yeah. What?"

I had only murmured his name without thinking. The voice from behind startled me so badly that I snapped my head around.

The same brilliant platinum hair. Skin white as snow. And eyes red as blood.

"Hey. Darling."

This time he stood with the rear garden behind him, smiling as he spoke. I stared blankly at Jay, who was smiling at me as if nothing at all were amiss, then turned my head and pretended I had seen nothing.

"……I should go to bed."

I tried to step past him, and Jay caught my wrist. The grip was not strong, but I had been so aware of him that the place he touched seemed to spark and ring. I stopped. Only then did the thoughts arrive, late.

How is Jay here? Why? Wasn't that day supposed to be the end? He can't have come to kill me for spoiling his mood?

"I think I know exactly what you're thinking right now."

I flinched. I turned to him with a rigid face, and froze where I stood.

Why does he look like that?

He was smiling faintly, like a stray cat someone had abandoned, and the sight lodged itself in my eyes.

That's Jay?

I could hardly believe he was the same man who had seemed equal to anything, always at his ease.

"I came to return this. It looked expensive."

Then he pressed something into my other hand. I moved only my eyes to see what it was.

"The bell……."

The bell I had lost in the slums. The one worth a castle. I looked at him, unable to believe it.

"You came to give this back?"

"Yeah. It's precious, isn't it? You shouldn't lose something like that."

With that, he smiled once more, like a child. The smile was so angelically pure that my guard nearly dropped of its own accord, but I knew his nature too well, and my face stayed doubtful.

"Is that all you came for?"

"Actually, there's more."