A Husband for Pretend

One day before Davion was to leave the estate. It was the hour when Cecilia returned to her inn room.

Needless to say, there was no first-aid kit to be found in a shabby old inn room like this one.

She pulled a blouse from her travel bag and slit it into long strips with a pair of scissors. For the harsh liquor she would use in place of disinfectant, she had gone down to the tavern downstairs.

The gunshot wound in his thigh was deep, but by some luck it seemed to have missed the major vessels.

The man, mouth hanging slackly, looked only half-conscious. Using a silver spoon borrowed from the inn's kitchen, she dug the bullet out, then poured the liquor straight over the wound.

While Cecilia tied the strips of blouse into a bandage, Nagi drank in the scent of blood, checking that the bleeding had truly been stopped.

A head of wavy chestnut hair fanned softly across the blanket. The bluish bruise at his temple — likely a souvenir from the kidnapping — did little to detract from the man's striking face.

It was less handsome-in-a-masculine-way than it was a face of androgynous beauty. He looked too young to have grown even the shadow of a beard, and as she examined his color, Cecilia found herself absently rubbing his jaw.

His satin dress, filthy with rain and street dust, had been impossible to leave on him.

He was remarkably thin — his frame slender and willowy, like a dancer's. Which meant, she was certain, that anyone at all would have been fooled once he was fitted with a wig and a dress.

「My, my... lucky little thing. A little higher and you'd never have laid an egg.」

Interest glittered in Nagi's eyes as she surveyed the man.

While Cecilia draped a bedsheet over his body, Ruby waddled over to argue.

「He's a male, Nagi. And humans don't lay eggs. Humans have babies.」

「Ah. Was that how it went?」

To avoid hibernating, Nagi made a habit of hunting down warm places. Coiling herself against the man's flank, which radiated the heat and damp of fever, she spoke.

「I think I like this human better than Cecilia's old male. The old male used to make such a frightening face whenever I so much as came near him.」

「This one might do the same. Most humans hate snakes. Venomous ones especially.」

「Humans hate crows too!」

「Hmph. Still, they'd like me more than they'd ever like you.」

「Enough. Don't fight over nothing.」

Cecilia had just raised her palm to cover Ruby's eyes when—

A faint moan rose from below.

「Oh. Looks like the new male is waking up.」

Are you all right? The question climbed all the way to Cecilia's lips, but it dissolved inside her mouth before it could become a voice.

Before his eyes had even opened, the man had seized her slender nape.

Thud. The back of her head struck the headboard, and the room spun. With Cecilia pinned, he groped one hand along his wounded thigh and scanned his surroundings.

"Where...?"

"Hkk—!"

"Where am I?"

Starved of air, Cecilia kicked at him and beat at his arm. Startled, Ruby shrieked belatedly and flapped about in a panic.

Only then did the man let out an "ah" of realization and release her, her face flushing crimson to the point of bursting.

"I'm sorry. I thought I'd been kidnapped again."

Cecilia gulped down fresh air and broke into coughing.

Her nape stung. When she pressed the spot where his hand had been, pain flared up. Holding a pillow up like a shield, she stammered out her explanation.

"You were shot, so I had to give you emergency treatment. There were no men's clothes here, so that was the best I could do. I swear to God, I didn't do anything to you."

Then, as if to prove her innocence, she spread both hands open in the air.

Only then did the man look down at himself, and his eyes went perfectly round. It was hardly the reaction the situation called for, but in that moment Cecilia couldn't help thinking how astonishingly well his clear amber eyes suited that androgynous face.

Dragging the sheet over his lower half, he sat up on the edge of the bed. He, too, seemed dizzy from the sudden movement.

Nagi, who had been glaring at the back of his head, advanced on Cecilia with a hiss.

「He almost got bitten. Your new male isn't quite the gentleman, is he.」

「Stop calling him my new male... You two keep teasing, and this whole situation gets weirder and weirder.」

「What else should I call a new male but a new male?」

The man's gaze shifted toward the bickering pair. Perhaps because he had already watched Nagi tear into an assailant's face for Cecilia's sake, his expression showed hardly any surprise at finding a venomous viper in the room.

"A crow and a snake... Are you of witch's blood, then?"

"And are you a man who dresses as a woman, then?"

For the first time, a deep crease formed between the man's brows. His answer carried unmistakable displeasure.

"There were circumstances. Those bastards only abduct women and children, so without dressing like this there was no way to infiltrate. Not that I ever imagined those idiots would actually fall for it... In any case, you have ruined my entire plan."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Cecilia shot upright, nostrils flaring.

The ruined faces of the women flashed one by one through her mind. When she recalled them huddled in the corner, trembling, an ungovernable fury came boiling up.

But having no wish to quarrel with the man who had saved her life, Cecilia clenched her jaw and held her tongue.

Besides — a shootout, of all things... Maybe he's right. Maybe I needlessly blew the whole thing out of proportion. The moment that thought surfaced, her momentum wilted another degree.

"I was under the impression plainclothes policing had been outlawed."

Cecilia murmured this darkly, knees drawn up to her chest, and the man let out a snort of laughter.

"Your imagination runs away with you. I'm just an unemployed vagrant chasing after underworld types. Which reminds me — did you by any chance report the victims to the police?"

His eyes were praying she hadn't.

Cecilia hesitated, then shook her head.

"No. I've run away from home, so drawing attention to myself would be... inconvenient. It's nothing much — I simply couldn't go on living under the same roof as my husband."

He was a complete stranger, not just in station but in name — she didn't even know who he was. Yet perhaps because it was the first time she had ever poured out her troubles to anyone, and though a premonition of danger flickered through her, once the words started coming there was no stopping them.

"I haven't been gone long. My husband holds a fairly high position, so if a report were filed and an investigation opened, they'd be certain to notice my existence. Better to be kidnapped and sold off again than let him find out I'm here."

"Good heavens..."

Pity crossed the man's face. In his head, Davion had transformed into a monstrous wife-beating brute.

Cecilia rose from the bed and, from the money pouch she had hidden beneath the floorboards, handed him two banknotes.

"In any case — thank you for saving me. Get to a hospital as soon as you can. I've done what I can for the wound, but it's deep. Left alone, it could fester."

"What about you?"

It was a question asked in flustered surprise as he watched Cecilia hurl her belongings helter-skelter into her travel bag.

"I'm moving to new lodgings, then I'm going to look for a way to get a ticket on a southbound train and a forged identity. I plan to leave this city before long."

That was as much as she could afford to tell him. While Cecilia eyed the man warily, Nagi slid smoothly across the floor and coiled herself up inside the bag. Cecilia wrapped her in thick clothing and shut the case.

But the man, turning her answer over in his mind, belatedly frowned and objected.

"Hold on. Do you have any idea how many swindlers infest this city? A young woman alone will hardly find it easy to get her hands on forged papers. And didn't you say you can't report anything no matter what happens, because of your husband?"

"I don't have any other choice. I've already left the house, and I have to leave the city."

"Hmm..."

The man stared into space, thinking — then his eyes lit up, and he said,

"How about this, then?"

Cecilia slowly turned to look at him. He was smiling with perfect confidence.

"I'm flat broke and in need of nursing for the time being, and you have to tread through the back alleys — so we'll pose as husband and wife, each serving our own interests. It would get you stopped far less often at random checkpoints, too. After all, it's not as if they arrest couples mid-conversation and demand their papers."

When he finished, he raised both hands in the air, exactly as Cecilia had done a short while ago. A vow that in sharing these quarters, he would never lay a hand on her.

"I have a little sister about your age, so I can't just let this slide. That girl suffered plenty at her husband's hands, too."

Cecilia fell into a brief struggle with herself. Because, hearing him out, the man's idea was better than she'd expected.

Just as he said, forged papers would be near impossible to obtain on her own. Traveling together would help her dodge the checkpoints. And he was grievously wounded — even if he did have some hidden agenda, she could subdue him easily enough.

Cecilia opened the travel bag again and took Nagi out.

At that gesture, which confirmed her answer, a satisfied smile bloomed at the corner of the man's mouth. But a few seconds had barely passed before he wrinkled his nose and, pointing at Cecilia's face, asked,

"By the way — can witches change their appearance as well?"

Failing to grasp the intent of the question, Cecilia blinked at him, bewildered.

Only after running her hands over her own face did she let out a soft "ah" of dismay.

Oh no.

She had forgotten to apply the disguise again.