Hold On, and the Light Will Come

The lane was bleak enough to match the hour, but I wasn't particularly worried. I had the bell I'd taken back from Jay, for one…

I glanced at Sion. Ever since we'd stepped down from the carriage, he had been walking a pace apart from me, though I could see him taking care not to drift beyond a certain distance.

I'd only meant to walk him around outside and let him grow used to it, but he made a sturdy guardian besides. No ordinary person was going to best a Wolf-kin, after all.

Asad or Jay might be another matter.

And why did my thoughts keep veering that way? Those two had left the category of ordinary people a long time ago.

In any case, I looked around. What was the dress shop called again…? It had taken the owner's name, I was certain.

"Ah. Found it. Flora Boutique… this is the place, isn't it?"

I had found the sign that read Flora Boutique, but the building was so shabby I could hardly bring myself to call it a dress shop. There was no window displaying gowns, and the exterior barely qualified as a storefront at all. For a moment I wondered whether I'd come to the wrong place, but it was unmistakably Flora Boutique. I opened the door quietly and stepped inside.

"Excuse me."

"Who—oh my!"

A thin, hesitant woman emerged and froze at the sight of me, startled.

"A noble lady—whatever brings you here…!"

She scrambled to prepare a seat, and I sat awkwardly where she indicated. Fortunately the interior was cleaner than the outside had suggested. A gown on a mannequin and bolts of fabric laid out in a row proved that this was, in fact, a dress shop.

"H-here you are."

Flora—presumably—offered me tea with trembling hands. Her nerves were obvious at a glance. I gave her a faint smile meant to ease them, took a sip, and let a look of genuine admiration follow.

"It's delicious."

"I'm so glad. I'm rather good at brewing tea, if I do say so myself."

"How lovely."

When I said it with a bright smile, color returned to Flora's face.

"To come to the point, I would like to purchase a dress that suits me. A ready-made one is perfectly fine. I need to wear it at once."

The appointment was tomorrow. It was far too late now to commission something custom. At my words, a keen edge flickered through the tension frozen in Flora's eyes.

Oh.

That was how I knew she was the real Flora.

She swept her gaze over me from head to toe, then rose without a word and disappeared into the back. The suddenness of it caught me off guard, but I drank my tea in silence and passed Sion a cookie now and then.

"I believe this dress will suit you best, my lady."

A short while later Flora returned and held out a blue crinoline gown embroidered in gold. It was unmistakably right for Aine's black hair and golden eyes.

"It's lovely."

"I'm so glad."

Even without an eye for dresses, I could tell that one would look beautiful on Aine. I reached for the money I'd brought, ready to pay.

"That will be twelve gold, my lady."

The price was a little strange. A fine gown usually ran somewhere around sixty gold, and what Flora had named wasn't even a quarter of that. To common folk either sum was expensive, of course, but Aine was no commoner. I frowned as I spoke.

"That's far too cheap."

"I-is it?"

I sighed inwardly. Cheap was all well and good, but price something too low and its worth only fell. I held out seventy gold. Flora's pink eyes went wide enough to burst.

"This is far too—!"

"It's a dress I will be wearing. Shouldn't it be worth at least that much? Think of it as an investment in me. There is no need to feel burdened."

"But… am I even allowed to accept this much? And it was made in advance, besides."

"Ready-made or commissioned, that doesn't matter. Only whether it pleases me or not."

Wow. I never thought I'd live to deliver a line like that.

But if I didn't go at least this far, Flora would never take the money. Even without me, the heroine would turn this place into the finest dress shop in the capital sooner or later. And the dress really had stolen my heart, hadn't it? I spoke a little more firmly.

"Miss Flora's dresses carry exactly that much worth. So please accept it. Refusing a proper price only cheapens your own value."

"…May I know your name, my lady?"

Flora looked as if she might cry. I hesitated, glancing aside, then offered it softly.

"Aine. Aine le Foregreen."

"Lady Aine…"

"Flora Boutique will soon be the greatest dress shop in the capital. So…"

I pressed my lips shut. For some reason my chest swelled. Perhaps these were the words I had wanted someone to say to me, in my last life.

"Thank you, my lady…"

I smiled brightly at her and left the shop with Sion. I had only come to buy a dress, and yet I felt strangely unsettled. Sion seemed to notice. He stayed silent as well, and only when we reached the carriage did he murmur, almost to himself.

"Master is… weird."

With that, he ducked straight into the carriage. The unexpected remark left me blank, as if a stone had struck me. Then, gloomily, I muttered.

"Is this puberty…?"

"Sion, don't worry. Just wait. I'll be back soon. Rita, look after him for me."

"Don't you worry—go on and enjoy yourself!"

"You have to come back soon…?"

I said it to the two of them in front of the carriage. Rita was still stealing glances at Sion, and Sion only looked up at me with a face on the verge of tears. I had told him he didn't need to come out, but he had insisted on seeing me off anyway. I was grateful that he was slowly starting to voice his own opinions, but the change was coming so fast I could hardly keep up.

I bid them both farewell and shut the carriage door, and before long we were rolling away from the ducal residence.

The Young Ladies' Social Club…

A sudden worry prickled—what if going only landed me in trouble?—but it wouldn't hurt to take the measure of the place for myself.

The heroine will be there too, won't she? Maria.

I turned Maria over in my mind. If Aine was the textbook villainess, Maria was the textbook heroine: kind, gentle, endlessly forgiving, lovable… A woman who never lost her smile, and whose smile set a light even in the darkest hearts around her.

The exact opposite of Aine.

With Maria's arrival, the brilliant, beautiful world Aine had built would collapse, and in the end she herself would walk the road to ruin. I was inside Aine's body now, and still I liked Maria. I had liked her even more than Asad. Watching her loved by the male leads and by her father, I had felt a kind of vicarious satisfaction, imagining myself as her.

But my position isn't the same.

That feeling belonged to then. I couldn't afford to sink into sentiment now—one wrong step, and my head might come off.

"My lady, we've arrived."

This gathering of the social club was being held at House Coconi, a county family whose wealth and standing were swelling at a remarkable pace through their mining ventures. I stepped lightly from the carriage and looked up at the mansion. It was certainly a splendid timber building, proud of its long history and considerable fortune—

Still no match for Foregreen.

We were the house second only to the Reinhardt Grand Duchy. There was no world in which we fell behind a mere county.

"Welcome."

The butler and the maids greeted me at the entrance. I showed them the invitation I had received the day before, and once he had confirmed it, the butler led the way.

"If you'll follow me, Lady Foregreen."

"Am I the last?"

"One guest has yet to arrive."

That would be Maria.

Protagonists always made their entrance last. I followed the butler at an easy pace. The county's gardens were peaceful and pretty, but the rear garden of the grand ducal house had still been the place where my heart settled most.

I'd like to go back.

For some reason, it felt as if every worry would vanish if I were there.

Is he still unable to sleep?

The Asad I had seen last time had looked even more exhausted than at our first meeting. That insomnia was probably still tormenting him.

I wonder if Sion is all right.

I had reassured him about Rita, but I was still a little worried. And what had that remark yesterday even meant—that I was weird? It really was puberty, wasn't it. Honestly.

Even so, I couldn't only be sad about it. Before, he would have been too afraid, too unwilling, even to speak to me. That he could say something like that at all meant he was growing comfortable around me.

And then…

Jay.

I worried that asking him to become the Pope's successor had been too much to ask. It wasn't as easy as saying the words, and Jay had walls of his own. The head of the capital's greatest assassin guild, heir to the Pope—wasn't that ironic?

If I start counting ironies, there'll be no end.

Which meant this was all Aine's fault. If she had forgotten about collecting trophies from the start and simply lived enjoying the horseback riding she loved, none of this hardship would have existed in the first place.

And she wouldn't have had to die, either.

Thinking of it that way, this novel really was merciless to everyone but the protagonists. They hadn't lived easy lives either, but in the end Aine was murdered, Sion died protecting her, and Jay lost both his love and his father at once. Follow the original, and the only thing waiting was the worst possible ending.

But if I twisted it—if Jay became the Pope's successor, and if I didn't die—then Sion would never die protecting me, either. The thought hardened something in me. I had to survive. And to survive, I had to part ways with those three.

"It is inside this greenhouse."