The Sewer Rat and the Stowaway
The sewer rat jerked its head up in terror, and the moment it found Cecilia staring down at it, it flew into a frantic tantrum.
「You human!」
The coarse dialect of a beast raised in the gutters came roaring back.
「Get lost! I'm busy!」
「Excuse me?」
Nagi, who had been listening in, opened her mouth in a threat.
「Shall I make you comfortable in my belly for all eternity?!」
Eep! Covering its face with rice-grain-sized paws, the rat curled up where it stood and began to grovel.
「No! S-spare me! Please spare me!」
「Don't, Nagi. We're not even hungry.」
Baring her bright yellow eyes at the rat in warning, Nagi tucked herself back beneath the hem of Cecilia's skirt.
The rat, after grooming its fur as if attending to a distinguished guest, answered with great ceremony.
「Five humans, and they're all asleep.」
Apart from dolphins and crows, most animals lacked the intelligence to lie. A deep crease formed between Cecilia's brows.
「Asleep? All of them?」
「Yes. They drank some s-strange-smelling water, and then they all f-fell asleep.」
Strange-smelling water. It was obvious what that must have been.
The rat glanced warily at Cecilia's face, then scurried off in a hurry before she could even thank it. A loaded pistol in hand, Cecilia flung the creaking door wide open.
"The men outside are all asleep. We have to leave now. I'll go first—follow me."
The women exchanged silent glances. As they helped one another to their feet, Cecilia hurried them out of the room.
At the end of the dark corridor, a staircase leading down came into view.
They had been imprisoned on the second floor of all places. What was more astonishing still was that the building was an ordinary family home.
Beneath the broken, rotting wooden banister, the parlor spread out below. Just as the rat had said, the thugs sprawled around the round table were all slumped over, unconscious. Empty liquor bottles rolled about under the table.
Overhead, a dust-caked incandescent bulb flickered above their heads.
Damn it all….
Her mouth had gone dry with tension. Glancing back at the women trailing behind her, Cecilia bent low and stole down the stairs.
The front door was locked. Without a moment's hesitation, she rerouted to the window beside it.
Thankfully, the window slid open smoothly.
A light drizzle was falling from the night sky. The drop to the ground was considerable, but a heap of garbage lay directly below—jumping onto it wouldn't hurt.
「Cecilia! I'm over here!」
Ruby, who had winged his way to a nearby roof at some point, lifted his beak high and called to her.
Swinging one leg over the windowsill, she turned to the women—whose faces had drained to the color of dirt the moment they realized what was about to happen—and spoke firmly.
"I'll jump first. Come down one at a time. I'll catch you."
With that, Cecilia wound Nagi, who had been clinging to her leg, around her neck and hurled herself downward. The garbage heap that broke her fall burst with a ferocious whump.
"Oof…."
Her back ached a little, but as expected, nothing was injured.
One after another, she stretched out both arms and caught the women as they dropped. But before she could catch the last of them, a gunshot split the silence like a tear through the eardrum.
"We're spotted! Run!"
They scattered with screams. The thugs hurled themselves through the window in an instant, charging after them with the ferocity of beasts catching the scent of blood.
"You crazy wenches! Where do you think you're going!"
Cecilia's white hair stood out starkly against the darkness.
"Stop right there, damn you!"
Spotting a thug rapidly closing the distance behind her, she drove her legs harder and burst out of the alley.
But the enemy had a gun. The moment the muzzle leveled at the back of Cecilia's head, Ruby shrieked.
「Cecilia! Gun!」
Bang.
The shot rang out. Cecilia's eyes snapped shut on pure reflex. And in the same instant, something large and warm wrapped around her, and they fell together.
When the sound of barking dogs rose from somewhere, the thug spewed curses and fled.
There was no time to feel relief. Cecilia scrambled up and turned to check on the person who had taken the bullet in her place.
It's…….
Incredibly, it was the very blonde woman who had been sitting by the door.
Blood poured in a steady stream from her thigh, where the bullet had torn through. With her head grinding against the rain-puddled ground, the woman moaned in agony.
When the police come, they'll verify her identity. And then my husband will find out I'm alive.
The barking was drawing closer. There wasn't even time to hesitate. Slipping her arm under the shoulders of the woman who could barely hold herself up, Cecilia hauled her upright and hurried off.
The woman was easily twice Cecilia's size. How she managed it, she would never know—only that the thought of falling into Davion's hands unleashed a superhuman strength from somewhere deep in her core.
Ruby guided the way from the sky to the inn.
Inside, the inn was in an uproar. A traveling band seemed to have arrived, for the guests had all gathered on the first floor, strumming guitars and singing together.
Cecilia slipped through the chaos, returned to her room, and bolted the door fast.
She was just laying the woman on the bed to examine the wound when something slid off the woman's head and dropped—thump—onto the floorboards.
A long, golden wig.
Hidden beneath it was a short chestnut-brown crop. Wig still in hand, Cecilia stared down, dazed, at the man lying on her bed, breathing in ragged, labored gasps.
Nagi and Ruby, who had settled in beside the bed at some point to watch, spoke as one.
「It's a male.」
「It's a male.」
Then they both looked at Cecilia at the same time.
「Ooh, Cecilia picked up a new male.」
1-2. The Fake Couple
The drizzle fell all through the night and kept falling still.
Though it was barely two in the afternoon, the churning clouds had darkened the sky to the gloom of evening. With his back to the study's enormous window, Davion laid out the romance novel series across his desk.
He had found them in Cecilia's bedroom—every last one of them filled with brazenly explicit content for adults.
Stealing the Duke's Night
The moment Liam read the flamboyant title printed on the stiffly bound cover, he winced and laughed.
"So this was my lady's hobby."
"A woman who learned love from novels."
Davion said it with his eyes closed. A faint smile touched his lips as he stroked the cover.
"Which is why I had to teach her, slowly, from the very beginning—one lesson at a time."
Liam gave no answer, only looked out the window.
At some point the drizzle had turned to snow, drifting down. Humble as it was, it was the year's first snowfall.
Before long, the first snow caught Davion's eye as well.
Whenever it snowed, that woman would always sit by the window and watch it fall….
Did I pack a winter coat into that travel trunk? He couldn't remember.
Why run away from a comfortable home, of all things. You, and me both—we didn't have to suffer through this freezing winter, snow and all.
"Captain."
At the knock on the door, Davion hastily smoothed the crease between his brows.
The soldiers who had deployed with him addressed him not as "Count" but by his rank. Because he had hired wounded soldiers from the battlefield and helped them settle, he was held in genuinely deep respect by veterans especially.
"What is it?"
"There was a fatal shooting in Easthollow last night. Two dead, both unidentified. There are a number of irregularities, Captain—I believe you should see the scene yourself."
In Easthollow, where every manner of crime under the sun occurred, a murder or two was utterly commonplace. Which made it all the more telling that the police had summoned him directly—this was no ordinary homicide.
"One of the dead is a young woman. The back-alley thugs seem to have wanted to throw off the investigation—they carved up her face with a knife."
Saying this, the young investigator scowled as though he'd witnessed something unspeakable.
A young woman?
In an instant, Davion felt a rough, grinding pain in his chest.
"What color was her hair?"
"Black, sir. But the color near the scalp was lighter—it looked dyed to me."
"We leave now. Liam, you're coming with me this time."
"Yes, sir."
Davion drew a revolver from the drawer and strapped it to his waist while Liam draped a coat over his shoulders.
His steps quickened despite himself as he followed the investigator.
Where are you, and what are you doing right now….
His chest felt tight, suffocating.
That woman—like a weed in a greenhouse… . A fury he couldn't contain suddenly boiled up toward her, and Davion clenched the fist in his pocket.
Cecilia.
All right. You win.
So if you come back now—even now—I'll pretend none of it ever happened.
