Because the Meat Was Delicious

"I want to call off my engagement to Your Grace."

He flinched. The tremor that ran through him was impossible to miss, and a moment later he was staring at me as though the words refused to take shape.

"What are you saying?"

"Exactly what I said. I want to break the engagement that was forced on us."

"And what scheme is it this time? Dissolve the engagement, then compel me to settle that absurd debt on the spot?"

He was sneering. Fair enough—I would have been furious too. One moment she forces an engagement into being, and the next she decides, on a whim, to tear it apart. Set that beside everything Aine had done until now, and suspicion was more than justified.

If I had been the real Aine, I might well have tried to hold his life in my hands exactly as he feared. But that was the Aine Asad wanted to possess. I was not the real Aine, and I did not want Asad.

His looks are perfectly my type, though.

Even so, I had no intention of becoming the sort of fool who chases something beautiful straight into her grave.

"I know you'll find it hard to believe, but I truly, purely want to sever my ties with you. I have no thought of threatening you with the debt."

"And how am I meant to believe that?"

Oh, just believe me. No matter how much he had suffered at Aine's hands, the endless suspicion was beginning to wear thin. In truth I would have liked to cut the tie by myself, but a broken engagement, like the engagement itself, could not be ended by one party alone. When both sides failed to agree, the matter sometimes went all the way to trial.

I—Aine—had been the one to insist on the engagement in the first place. Turning around now and demanding it be severed out of nowhere was too much to ask of anyone, grand duke or not.

I decided I needed to be firm. Firm enough to prove that I wanted nothing to do with him. I looked Asad straight in the eye and spoke, each word set down clearly, so there could be no mistaking me.

"Let me be perfectly clear. I have no interest in you whatsoever. Yes, I forced this engagement, but nothing of the sort will ever happen again. If you wish it, I won't so much as show my face before you from now on. As for the debt, I'll speak to my father myself. You needn't worry about that part."

He said nothing.

Asad looked as though he had lost the power of speech. Satisfied the message had landed, I rose in one smooth motion. His gaze followed me up.

"Then I'll take my leave, with that understood. The formal notice of the dissolution will come from our—"

"What, exactly, is your true face?"

"...Pardon?"

Caught off guard by the question out of nowhere, I turned a puzzled look on him. Asad stood and closed the distance in a few long strides, and his shadow fell over me at once. I lifted my head. Up close, what lived on his face was unmistakably confusion.

"Do you mean to toy with me, my lady? Do you wish to see me thrown into confusion? A vicious pastime, if so."

Um. Would anyone like to explain why he's like this?

I was dumbfounded, and I let every bit of it show.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"...If you yourself do not know, then I have nothing further to say. I shall send the certified notice from this house. You may go."

It was an unmistakable dismissal. I left the reception room in a daze, and only long after the door slammed shut behind me did I let out an empty breath.

What is this? This sheer absurdity?

I stared at the reception room door, behind which he still stood, then decided it hardly mattered and turned lightly on my heel, leaving the grand ducal residence. At the waiting carriage the coachman hurried to lower the steps, and soon we were moving. I watched the estate recede until it was small in my eyes, then turned my head away, certain that with this my tie to Asad was wholly severed, and that my chances of survival had risen, if only a little.

"Welcome home, my lady."

The moment I stepped down from the carriage inside the ducal estate, Rita, who had been waiting, offered the greeting. I came down the steps and gave her a light nod.

"Would you like a bath first? And the master asked that you join him for dinner."

"Ah, perfect timing."

I'd had business with that man myself. First I returned to my room, kicked off the shoes that had been pinching all day, and sank into a bath strewn with floating rose petals. A bathtub. In my past life I couldn't have imagined such a thing.

"A public bathhouse would suit me better, though."

I gazed up at the damp ceiling, then turned a slow circle in the water, braced my arms on the warmed marble, and slipped beneath the surface.

"Brrbbll."

I blew the ridiculous noise through my lips until my breath gave out, jerked my head up, and muttered with a sigh caught in the words.

"I'm exhausted."

I had met only Asad, and already mind and body were worn through. He was supposed to have been the easiest of the three collectibles.

"What on earth was he talking about?"

Toying with him, he'd said. I wondered whether I'd tripped him without meaning to, but nothing came to mind. Then again, to an Asad who hated Aine, even the fact that I drew breath might have been an offense.

At any rate, Asad is dealt with.

I'd manufactured a fresh, piping-hot piece of personal humiliation along the way, but set beside the price of my life, it was nothing. And then, suddenly, I laughed.

Why am I thrashing this hard?

In my past life I would have waited to die with a whatever-happens-happens shrug. Living hadn't been living, so there had been no reason to survive. Seeing myself struggle so hard to stay alive, I understood all over again how terrifying one's circumstances could be—and I grew a little afraid of leaning on a hope that promised nothing, only to be disappointed.

Even so, I couldn't simply fold my hands and wait for the day I died. I let my languid body go slack and turned my thoughts to the next target.

The master of the assassin guild.

Jay.

His true name was Jade Luke Acabella. A bastard forsaken by God.

"They say dinner is ready."

Out of the bath, I let Rita dry my hair and changed into a simple dress. I left the soft, fluffy hair hanging loose. A beautiful jewel is beautiful even in the rough; without my doing a thing, a clear, fresh charm poured off me.

On the way to the dining room I was quietly tense. Since I had come to inhabit this body, I had never once seen the Duke.

He was abroad on business, or so I was told.

After so long a journey he must have wanted to rest, and yet the moment he returned he sought out his daughter first. His love for her ran deep. Well—he had lost his wife, and she was the only family he had left.

That was still no excuse for spoiling her rotten.

Some things had to be refused. Aine had been able to run wild precisely because she knew her father would permit anything and clean up after her. Of course, given her station and the Duke's crowded days, he would have wanted to give her whatever lay in his power.

It wasn't blackmail, though.

The thought of Asad drew my brows together of their own accord. I had cut the tie—so why was he occupying me more than he had before I cut it? That scar, sunk deep along his collarbone, still flickered behind my eyes.

"The young lady has arrived."

Somewhere in the middle of my thoughts I had reached the dining room. Rita announced me and opened the door, and I stepped inside, light on my feet.

"Aine, come in, my dear."

The moment I appeared, the man seated at the head of the table shot to his feet to welcome me. He had a daughter in her early twenties, and yet he looked every bit as sturdy and solid as a young man. He had the same black hair and golden eyes as Aine, but the air about him was different. Where Aine called a cat to mind, he, to be precise, resembled a lion. A lion in the full of his years.

With that, I understood a little better why he cherished her so. Aine resembled the wife he had loved so dearly.

"It's been a long time, Father."

More precisely, the first time I had ever met him. As I bowed my head in greeting, a lump rose in my throat for no good reason.

How long has it been since I used that word?

Since the man called Father ran from his debts and left a child behind—ten years, give or take. Perhaps because the name didn't sit naturally on my tongue, my mouth tasted bitter. I lifted my head slowly. The Duke was smiling at me, bright and unguarded. Could a face alone make someone that happy? I found it a little hard to understand.

I sat across from him. Unlike the tables I had seen in films, this one wasn't particularly long, and a moment later I remembered the description: the Duke had shortened it so he could talk with his daughter.

"You must be very tired."

I offered him the same open, easy smile Aine would have worn. He answered as he cut into his steak.

"One look at my daughter's face, and even the weariness lifts."

I said nothing. The Duke's devotion to his daughter was a scene I had often met in the book. It had left me with a strange feeling every time I read it, and living it was harder still to bear. In the end I pressed my lips shut and stabbed at the innocent steak. In an instant the meat was in tatters. I loved meat, and yet somehow I had no appetite.

What is this feeling?

"Come to think of it, I heard you went to see the Grand Duke. Was something troubling you? If there's a problem, tell your father. I'll take care of all of it."

At the sound of his voice I looked up. Contrary to his words, fatigue lay deep on his face, but the expression he turned on me was, as ever, full of affection. In that moment I envied Aine. And somehow...

"No, it isn't that..."

Plip.

Huh?

We weren't outside, and yet a drop of water fell onto the shredded meat. I heard the startled Duke drop his silverware and shove back from the table.

"A-Aine? Why are you crying? Did the Grand Duke say something? Is that it? Don't just cry—tell me, quickly!"

He hovered around me, utterly at a loss, shifting from foot to foot. He had never seen Aine like this, and clearly had no idea what to do. But here's the thing: when someone soothes you from the side, the tears only come harder. All the more when that someone is the very person who made you cry.

Ah. This was not why I had come to see the Duke. Just how much fresh humiliation was I planning to manufacture today? I thought I would have to ask Rita for a new blanket before I slept. Come morning, my kicking would have left nothing of the old one.

"Aine, don't cry. When you cry, your father's heart aches too. Have I done something wrong? Tell me, then. I'll set it right at once."

He said it with his hands trembling. It was because he was always like this that Aine had grown so impossible. But for that very reason she had loved her father. She had believed he was the only one on her side.

When I read it, I had cursed her for an egoist who made others miserable and hoarded all the affection for herself. Only now could I understand, a little, how she had felt.

"It's nothing."

I lifted my head and said it to the Duke, whose face was a picture of distress.

"It's just... the meat tastes good."