Spy Classroom - Volume 6 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Searching

When Sara left the changing room, the air’s cold chill rushed over her skin.

She wiped her hair with a bath towel as she headed for the kitchen. Upon reaching the fridge, she took out a bottle of milk and slowly drank it down. Her puppy, Johnny, looked at her pleadingly. “It’ll just make you sick,” she gently reminded him.

Sara knew that if she didn’t dry her hair right after she got out of the bath, it would make her already-curly locks even more unruly. As she headed over to grab a comb, she caught a glimpse of the living room. Due to the apartment’s small size, it was never hard to find out what her roommates were up to.

“………”

There was an ash-pink-haired girl sitting on the sofa.

Her name was “Forgetter” Annette, and between her large eye patch and her messily tied-up hair, her appearance was somewhat striking. She was normally a bundle of chaotic energy, but at the moment, she was staring silently at the television.

The CRT TV was right in the middle of displaying a news broadcast.

“We now bring you information about the terrorist bombing that targeted Crown Prince Darryn last month.”

On the screen, a strong, handsome man was waving. The man was Crown Prince Darryn, Queen Ribault’s firstborn son and the person slated to someday lead all the nations of the Commonwealth. The news report started by going over the details of the attack.

“On the day the crown prince visited the National Physics Research Center, a suspicious package was seen at the site. When one of the employees touched the package, it exploded. Two died, and another ten were wounded. The authorities are doing everything they can to locate the party responsible—”

Word of the attack had been sweeping the nation, especially because the perpetrator was still at large.

The newscaster went on to speak on behalf of the people, talking about how angry they were at the terrorist and how anxious they were that the culprit had yet to be found. Crown Prince Darryn was tremendously popular with the masses, and ever since the war, he’d been making sure to attend all sorts of diplomatic events so he could build positive international relationships.

“Crown Prince Darryn majored in physics as a student and received incredible marks. The purpose of his visit was to cheer on our domestic researchers, several of whom were friends of his from university—”

From there, the newscast listed out facts about the crown prince.

“…What in the world’s going on with this country?” Sara muttered lifelessly.

An attempt had been made on the crown prince’s life, and her own countrymen had lost their lives there as well. She wanted to believe that the two things had nothing to do with each other, but…

…I’m worried.

It felt like her heart was going to shrivel up.

In fact, I’m scared…everything about this country frightens me…

Avian was far more skilled than Lamplight, and their loss had been giving Sara chills ever since it happened. She’d only just gotten out of the shower, and her skin already felt clammy.

Before she knew it, she had wrapped her arms around herself.

“Yo.” All of a sudden, Annette spoke up. “I’m curious about this dude.”

“Huh?”

“He makes me feel itchy.”

Annette’s gaze didn’t budge from the television. She seemed keenly interested in Crown Prince Darryn.

Sara gave her a puzzled look. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Annette offered her no reply. She just kept staring intently at the screen. What was it that right eye of hers was seeing?

Then Sara noticed that Annette was fiddling with something between her fingers.

That’s one of Miss Lan’s strings…

Annette was playing cat’s cradle with a special type of string as she watched TV. The string was thin, flexible, and strong. One of Avian’s members, “Cloud Drift” Lan, used it as her weapon of choice.

It was a surprising sight.

I was never really sure if Miss Annette liked Avian the way the rest of us did…

Sara thought back.

She reflected on how she and Annette had spent the honeymoon.

It was ten days into the honeymoon, and while Lamplight and Avian were starting to get along like a house on fire, there was still one big elephant in the room: Annette and Lan’s relationship.

Apparently, Lan had called Annette a runt back in Longchon. Annette had a major complex about her height, and the insult had invoked her wrath. She’d mercilessly thrashed Lan and forced her to kowtow half naked. Even after all that, though, Annette had yet to forgive her. Every time Lan visited Heat Haze Palace, Annette would immediately attempt to capture her, and Lan would destroy various odds and ends as she fled as fast as she could. Both Lamplight and Avian were just about sick of it.

On the tenth day of the honeymoon, they decided to open up peace talks.

Over in Heat Haze Palace’s main hall, a certain someone stood before Sara and Annette and bowed.

“Would you please consider letting bygones be bygones with Lan?”

That someone was “Glide” Qulle. Qulle wore a large pair of glasses and kept her jade green hair tied up behind her in a ponytail. She was a pretty reasonable person by Avian’s standards, and she handled most of the team’s planning and coordination.

She pressed her hands together apologetically.

“Why are you the one asking, Miss Qulle?” Sara asked.

“Because if Lan came and apologized herself, Annette would just try to kill her again.”

“And why did you ask for me to come?”

“…Sorry. I don’t have any real confidence in my ability to get through to Annette directly.”

Qulle’s expression conveyed pure exhaustion. By the look of it, she’d already tried talking to Annette, and her attempt had ended in failure.

Over to Sara’s side, Annette puffed up her cheeks. “No matter what you say, I’m not gonna forgive her, yo!” She crossed her arms and refused to even look Qulle’s way.

Qulle smiled and offered her a baked good. “Come on, there’s no need to be like that.”

The treat seemed to tickle Annette’s fancy. “Hmm?” she said as she looked right back over.

Sensing that she was getting somewhere, Qulle made her case. “Lan’s really sorry about what she said. She even went and bought you these cookies from a popular shop. ‘I fear I have besmirched Dame Annette’s honor most egregiously,’ she said.”

“Huh? She did?”

“She did. So I was really hoping you two could make up,” Qulle implored her.

Without missing a beat, Sara spoke up as well. “I’d really appreciate it, too, Miss Annette.”

She laid a hand on Annette’s back.

Annette could be childish, and there were definitely times when she took things too far, but Sara knew she wasn’t actually heartless.

“……………………”

Annette looked back and forth between Sara’s face and the proffered cookie. She pursed her lips.

“You know, I came up with a plan,” Qulle said, clasping her hands together in excitement. “There’s a really pretty waterfall about a two-hour drive from here. The two of you can go there together, then shake hands and bury the hatchet. When you do, the rest of us will be waiting at the top of the waterfall. We’ll drop balls that say ☆ CONGRATULATIONS ☆, and they’ll float on past to celebrate your—”

“THOU’RT WIDE OPEN!”

““What?””

All of a sudden, a figure descended from the ceiling.

It was a girl with dark-red hair and dignified features—“Cloud Drift” Lan.

Lan ignored Sara’s and Qulle’s dumbfounded stares and used the string extending from her fingers to tie up Annette. The strings undulated like they had minds of their own as they wove their way around Annette’s limbs.

Nobody had noticed her until the very moment she’d chosen to make her presence known.

“Ha-ha! Behold my liecraft—Covert Ops!” She let out a booming laugh as she deftly manipulated her string. “And paired with my special ability Detainment, no less! Resistance without foreknowledge of the technique doth be futile!”

By that point, Annette was already completely locked down. She was tied up from head to toe.

“U-ummm…” Over to the side, Qulle rubbed her temples. “What do you think you’re doing, Lan?”

“Prithee forgive me for deceiving thee, Sister Qulle. Had I not acted thusly, capturing this fiend would have been beyond me.”

“I…see…”

“But ah, what a splendid gambit. Thy dreadful reconciliation plan was a work of art. Even Dame Sara was taken aback. Surely, a proposal that disastrously tacky could only have been meant as a distraction.”

“…Huh? I-it was tacky?” Qulle froze with her eyes wide. After a moment, she slumped her shoulders. “I spent all night coming up with that…” Behind her glasses’ lenses, her eyes appeared to be swimming with tears.

“Now then, vile runt! Not even thou couldst escape from this!” Lan, in contrast, was on cloud nine. She stood before Annette’s bound-up body and chortled. “Brace thyself! Now, thou shalt know disgrace! I intend to return thy malice a hundred times over, and all the while, I shall call thee runt until—”

She trailed off midsentence.

A series of blades had just popped out of Annette’s clothes and sliced through the string.

“What…………?”

“I figured you were plotting something, yo.”

Annette gave her body a shake, and an avalanche of knives and drills came tumbling out of her skirt. She’d planned for just this eventuality.

She picked up the largest of the drills and flipped it on. With a loud VRRRRRRRRRR, it began spinning fast and hard enough to bore through human flesh with ease.

Lan’s face froze. “Ack—”

“I was nice enough to let you beg for your life once, but twice is a bridge too far, yo.”

“MY SINCEREST APOLOGIEEEEEEES!”

Lan began fleeing, and Annette clutched her drill as she gave chase. The sound of a window shattering echoed from down the hallway, followed by Monika’s roar of “Quit breaking every damn thing you see!”

Sara and Qulle were the only two people left in the main hall.

“…I’m so sorry about this, Sara.”

“No, no… It’s not your fault…”

Both of them had been little more than spectators in the farce that had just played out.

“Actually, Sara, why don’t you and I be friends? I feel like we have a lot in common,” Qulle said. Her face was the portrait of exhaustion. “Honestly, you’re probably the only person across both teams who understands what I go through. I swear… Why do we surround ourselves with such lunatics?”

The look in Qulle’s eyes was so pitiable, there was no way Sara could have possibly turned her down.

That marked the beginning of Sara and Qulle’s relationship as conversation buddies. That said, over 80 percent of their chats involved Qulle saying “Get a load of this, Sara!” and griping about her teammates. She would complain about how Vindo and Lan never listened to her, about how Vics and Pharma kept going AWOL, about how she could never tell what was going on in Queneau’s head, and about how Lamplight’s members kept making fun of how tacky her ideas were.

It a lot of ways, Qulle was Avian’s peacemaker. The team’s members were all prideful to a fault, and the fact that they’d been able to cooperate at all despite not having a boss until just the month prior was entirely thanks to her.

That was who “Glide” Qulle was—smart, diligent, and the long-suffering brains behind Avian’s operation.

Annette muttered something.

“What?” asked Sara. She’d been too lost in thought to catch what Annette just said.

A fair bit of time had passed since they had found out about Avian getting wiped out, but Sara’s heart still ached. She knew that this was no time to be losing herself in sorrow, but whenever she let her mind wander, their smiles were always the first thing it dredged up.

“The fog,” Annette repeated, “is getting thicker.”

“I guess it is, yeah,” Sara said. Outside the window, their view of the town was becoming white and cloudy as the fog started to roll in.

With that, Annette sprang to her feet. “I’m heading out for a bit, yo.”

“Huh?” Sara said, surprised.

Annette hummed to herself as she strolled on past. All the while, she continued playing cat’s cradle.

At present, it was already two in the morning.

“Bro gave me some secret orders,” Annette said gleefully on her way out.

Before Sara had a chance to ask what those orders were, Annette had already charged out the door and vanished.

A thick fog hung over the city of Hurough, and the view from the car window was so cloudy and white that it was like sitting in smoke. The fog had been coming in nightly of late, likely as a result of air pollution. All the charcoal the factories burned turned right into smoke and soot and dissolved into the air, and the sulfur dioxide gas the diesel cars emitted accumulated near the ground. That was what formed the visibility-hampering fog.

The Fend Commonwealth was one of the world’s foremost industrial powerhouses, and ever since the Industrial Revolution, it had been building massive factories all around Hurough. In the century prior, the nation had been dubbed “the world’s workshop.” The Great War’s ravages had allowed the United States of Mouzaia to steal the title over to its own continent, but even now, the area around Fend’s capital was full of factories of all sorts.

As a result, though, the air pollution was really quite bad. Hurough’s fog was heavy, thick, and deep, especially around the Houses of Parliament. Come nightfall, it was impossible to see farther than an inch in front of your face there.

“Seriously, what the hell,” Sybilla grumbled from the back seat. “How’s the fog in Hurough this damn thick?”

““Shut up.””

She got her response from two directions simultaneously. Sitting to her side, there was a kindly looking woman dressed in a habit—Lotus Doll—and steering the car from up in the driver’s seat, there was a suit-clad boy wearing a top hat—Disintegrator Doll. The two Belias aides were taking Sybilla somewhere and sitting in a way that boxed her in. Another Belias car was following along behind them.

“Look, I’m not makin’ fun of your city or nothing,” Sybilla said, waving her hands defensively. “I’m just sayin’, aren’t you scared having to drive through the night fog like this?”

“You get used to it.” “It’s why we’re taking it slow.”

“Oh, huh.”

“There’s nothing for you to be worried about.” “But don’t even think about trying to use the fog to escape.”

The two aides spoke with perfect synergy. They differed in age and gender, and they didn’t look like siblings, either. There was something uncanny about seeing two people so wildly different sync their speech so precisely.

Sybilla laid her hands behind her head and crossed her legs. “Hey, as long as it’s safe, that’s all that—”

A loud thump sounded out.

The car shook, then skidded to a stop.

“““………………………………”””

There was a protracted silence.

It was hard to see in the fog, but it looked like something had just popped up in front of them.

“What the hell did we just hit?” Sybilla shouted.

The two aides cocked their heads. ““Who knows?””

Disintegrator Doll stepped out of the car for a moment, then quickly returned. “It was just a branch from one of the roadside trees. It must have fallen off,” he reported.

“That’s good to hear,” Lotus Doll murmured expressionlessly as they set off again like nothing had happened.

Something about those two really threw Sybilla off her game.

Eventually, the car came to a stop at a building just off the Turko River.

“We’re here, dear guest.” “This is where the Avian hideout we found is.”

The two aides explained the situation as Sybilla got out of the car. She traced her fingers across the car’s dented hood, then went inside.

Avian’s base was in an apartment, or as they called them in Fend, a flat. Immediately after the Industrial Revolution, the machine shops they had built around the Hurough outskirts gave rise to a huge population boom in the city. Word had it that the housing situation was so bad that they had to cram seven or eight people into a single tiny room. Things had gotten a lot better over the hundred-odd years since then, but even so, the building they’d arrived at was dark, cramped, and permeated with the smell of dust.

Apparently, Avian had set up shop in the second-floor corner unit of the seven-story building.

“This is where they were staying…” Sybilla gasped.

She opened the door.

Inside, the room was basically empty. There was a bed and a cabinet, nothing more.

“We already retrieved all their personal effects,” Lotus Doll explained. “Do you see any clues, dear guest? We’d like you to survey the scene.”

Sybilla searched the room. However, there wasn’t exactly that much to search. All of Avian’s belongings had already been removed, and the unit was only the size of a one-bedroom apartment. She decided to check behind the furniture.

“Huh? What’s this?”

When she stuck her hand beneath the bed, there was a clattering sound. She tried grabbing whatever it was, and when she pulled her hand out, she was holding a thick fountain pen.

“Looks like there were still some personal effects, after all.” Disintegrator Doll walked over and snatched away the pen. “We’ll hold on to this, just in case.”

“Hey, wait! I wasn’t done—”

Sybilla’s voice went rough, and she tried to reach for the pen. The moment she did, though, a pair of shadows moved in unison. The woman coiled her arm around Sybilla’s, and the boy wrapped his hand around Sybilla’s throat. It was a brilliant piece of work. In the blink of an eye, they had her completely subdued.

“You’re really starting…” “…to get on our nerves, dear guest.”

Each of her ears picked up a different threatening voice.

“________!”

With her body locked down like that, all Sybilla could do was groan.

I knew it. These guys are no pushovers!

The two dolls were first-rate players who’d protected their nation by helping Puppeteer capture scores of spies. Weaklings didn’t get to fight on the shadow war’s front lines.

“We aren’t allies by any stretch of imagination. Do remember that,” Lotus Doll said.

“It would be so trivial for us to kill you,” Disintegrator Doll said.

“Master Amelie watched you.”    “She gauged your skills.”

“You’re third-rate.”    “Laughably weak.”

“Have you ever actually beaten a spy?”    “I doubt it.”

“A nobody who only knows violence.”    “A nobody with a few hit man tricks.”

“Maybe you and your friends ganged up.”    “Maybe that let you take down a single foe.”

“That’s the most you could hope to do.”    “…Is what Master Amelie determined.”

“In other words, to us…”    “To first-rate spies like us…”

““…you’re an insignificant third-rate failure.””

Sybilla couldn’t help but click her tongue.

The analysis they were whispering in her ears was all indisputably true. Most of Lamplight’s members, Sybilla included, had never taken down an enemy spy solo. Their only real accomplishments of note were taking down Corpse’s apprentice as a group and defeating a handful of civilians who’d been under Purple Ant’s control. Not once had they ever beaten an active-duty spy. They hadn’t even been able to beat Avian.

What was truly impressive, though, was the analytical abilities it would have taken Amelie to piece that together over the course of their brief interaction. Deduction alone couldn’t have gotten her there. She probably operated under similar principles as Klaus—her mountains of experience had honed her intuition, allowing her to jump straight past logic and arrive directly at the truth.

It made sense, then, why two people as skilled as Lotus Doll and Disintegrator Doll were so slavishly devoted to her.

“…Is that right?” Sybilla muttered lifelessly. They let her go, and she plopped her butt down on the ground.

In the end, she never managed to get the fountain pen back. “This guest of ours has some awfully sticky fingers,” Disintegrator Doll said as he passed the pen to his partner, Lotus Doll.

After taking it, Lotus Doll said “I’ll report in to HQ” and then stepped away.

Sybilla let out a long exhalation, then shook her head.

“Are you sad?” Disintegrator Doll asked.

“What?”

Sybilla looked up at him.

The boy took off his top hat and rotated it between his fingers. “I’m asking how much it hurts to lose your countrymen. Enough to make you sob into your pillow for three days straight? Were you dating any of them?”

“…The hell are you on about?”

“Our relationship is antagonistic at the moment, but…once this is all over, I’d be happy to at least hear you out.” He put his hat back on. “We don’t have time for that now, of course. Protecting Prince Darryn is our top priority. I expect you to pull your weight.”

“…………………”

Sybilla wondered what emotions he’d felt as he said those words.

…I don’t get these people one bit.

It was a peculiar feeling, but for the time being, she just quietly replied, “I know that.”

At that point, Lotus Doll came back. “We have new orders.”

She started out by whispering in Disintegrator Doll’s ear. “Got it,” he said with a nod. The two of them stood side by side and turned to look at Sybilla.

Disintegrator Doll smiled ominously. “It’s time for our next mission, dear guest.”

“Cool, what is it? If it’ll help us find Lan, I’ll do any—”

“Strip.”

“…………”

““We said, strip.””

That was the last thing she’d been expecting the aides to demand of her.

“Wait, what? What? Whaaaaaaaaaaat?”

Thirty minutes prior, Klaus and Amelie had been driving through a Fend suburb as well. The two of them were sitting in the back seat and looking straight ahead, their gazes never meeting.

“Our foremost priority is to ensure Prince Darryn’s safety,” Amelie dispassionately explained. “He’s as important to this nation as the sun in the sky is. We have a responsibility to immediately apprehend any who would cause him harm. That’s the duty we’re charged with.”

“And you suspect that Avian, and thus Lan, is going after him,” Klaus replied, sounding thoroughly annoyed. “But that isn’t possible. The Din Republic has no reason for wanting Prince Darryn dead.”

“Why did Avian attack him, then?”

“Your premise is fundamentally flawed. Show me your evidence.”

“No.”

“…Fine. In any case, we need to find Lan as fast as humanly possible. Somebody else is pulling the strings here, and having Lan tell us what’s really going on is going to be the best way to protect the crown prince.”

“What an awfully convenient hypothesis.”

“Is it, now?”

“Well, I suppose that doesn’t really matter. We need to capture Cloud Drift—before she has another chance to attack Prince Darryn,” Amelie coldly declared. Klaus just shook his head.

The two of them continued trying to sound each other out for a little while, and as they did, the car made its way onto a mountain trail. After driving up the road for a bit, it arrived at a clearing. The mountain overlooked the capital, and about halfway up, a small area had been partially developed. The ground was flat, and there was a modest two-story building with a crane, an excavator, and other heavy machinery.

“They were planning on building a resort hotel here,” Klaus explained, “but the plans fell through before construction was finished, and the site’s been abandoned for nearly four years. The building there is the admin cabin they built to oversee the construction from.”

Amelie got out of the car and let out an impressed murmur. “So you’re saying that up here in the middle of nowhere—”

“That’s right,” Klaus confirmed. “The Din Republic’s been using it as a comms station.”

Amelie headed into the admin cabin with five of her subordinates in tow. Their destination was a room tucked away in the corner of the second floor. They passed through what used to be an office and found the door. It was locked.

Klaus took the key he’d brought with him and opened it up.

Inside the tiny room, there was a large transmitter with a blinking red light. It was clearly drawing power, and when they flipped the light switch, the whole room lit up.

“This is where Cloud Drift sent her final message?” Amelie asked.

“That’s right,” Klaus replied from the back of the group. “She told our messenger that everyone on the team but her was dead, then went dark. That watch store where you picked up Sybilla was the first clue we’ve gotten as to her whereabouts.”

Amelie’s subordinates got to work ransacking the comms station. As they did, Amelie stayed right by Klaus’s side. She brushed her gloved hand across the transmitter and tilted her head. “Is this sand? No, it’s likely bits of bread…”

Sure enough, the device was positively covered in breadcrumbs.

“And is this a label? The handwriting differs from Cloud Drift’s.”

Hanging from the device’s front, there was a large piece of paper. It read Hold out for as long as you can!

Amelie frowned. “What’s the deal with the sappy advice?”

“Beats me,” Klaus replied. “Lan is an odd one. I can never tell what she’s thinking.”

“………”

Amelie stared motionlessly at the transmitter. Then she called for a chair, plopped herself down, and went silent.

Klaus carefully observed her. He had close to zero intel on Belias, meaning that they must have come to prominence recently. Purple Ant’s massacre in Mitario had caused dizzying shifts in the espionage landscape. The question was: Exactly how skilled was that Gothic witch of a woman?

“There’s an odor,” Amelie said. “Sewage, most likely. However, it hasn’t permeated the entire admin cabin evenly. Somebody’s been frequently coming in and out.” She looked over at Klaus. “Have you been keeping this building under watch twenty-four seven?”

“No, we haven’t. We don’t have the manpower for that, not with how far this place is from the city.”

“Interesting. From here on out, Belias will be keeping this comms station under constant surveillance.”

She snatched away Klaus’s key, then began briskly giving orders to her people.

Then she ran her fingers along the transmitter once more. “By the way, dear guest, as far as Cloud Drift’s profile goes…”

“Sure, I can give you a basic over—”

“‘Cloud Drift’ Lan. Age sixteen. Has a lively and honest personality but a habit of making thoughtless comments. Generally cowardly, but with firm convictions, and operates mainly through ambushes and other covert actions. Those are all just my conjectures, but I trust they’re largely accurate?”

“……………………”

That was enough to strike Klaus speechless. The answer Amelie had given was all but perfect.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Amelie nodded in satisfaction. “Cloud Drift needs to be constantly alert, but she also wants to get in touch with her allies. As I see it, she’s been using her specialized hiding techniques to stay out of sight as she travels back and forth between this comms station and a spot where spies are liable to gather.”

“Impressive. I came to the same conclusion. I haven’t had any success figuring out where that might be, but—”

“That’s because you don’t know Hurough like I do.”

Amelie picked up a small piece of rubbish from the comms room floor. It was a scrap of red cloth less than an inch long.

“This came from a Claudinette carpet. They only sell this material to palatial buildings at least twenty thousand square feet, and they only started offering this color seven months ago. With a little digging, we should be able to narrow down the location Cloud Drift has been staking out. As far as I know, though, there’s only one place it might be.” Amelie laid out her hypothesis without so much as a wasted breath. “Heron Manor. That’s where Cloud Drift’s been going.”

“………”

After saying her piece, Amelie strode out of the comms room without so much as waiting for Klaus’s response. As Klaus watched her go, he silently delivered his verdict.

The woman had earned nearly perfect marks. As far as players in the shadow war went, “Puppeteer” Amelie was decidedly first-rate.

“I have another job for you and your people, dear guest.”

“Hmm?”

Amelie gave Klaus an unnerving smile. There was something almost sadistic about it.

“I’m going to need you to dance like there’s no tomorrow.”

Heron Manor was a mansion belonging to the wealthy David Kris. He was a member of the fabled bourgeoisie who’d come into prominence managing large factories, and every weekend, he would throw a big soiree. The parties were called Heron’s Banquets, and though the membership fee was steep, the Banquet was open to any who could afford it. The event had made quite a name for itself, and each week, over two hundred politicians, bureaucrats, and wealthy people of all stripes gathered together to attend.

The party’s main event was its ballroom dancing. Dinner was served buffet style, and much of the hall was full of people dancing the waltz to a live orchestra. Make no mistake, though—the dancing was no casual affair. For the participants, it was a trial. The host, David Kris, had a saying: “Seeing a man dance will tell you everything you need to know about him.” When you watched someone dance, you could tell a lot about their pedigree, their abilities, and the way they treated others. Thus, you could ostracize any and all impostors—people who came from poor families who couldn’t afford dance instructors, people who lacked the talent to learn, and people who didn’t possess social connections to find a good partner alike. Though the accuracy of Kris’s theory was debatable, the people who attended his parties tended to share his beliefs. No matter how shrewd someone was when it came to business, anyone who couldn’t waltz well would be mocked and struggle to find a partner. Conversely, a strong performance on the dance floor could take an entrepreneur with no meaningful accomplishments to their name and give them promise in the eyes of the crowd.

The Heron’s Banquets looked elegant at first glance, but some referred to them as the quintessence of high society.

The evidence suggested that “Cloud Drift” Lan had been frequenting Heron Manor. The parties’ structure made them the perfect spot for spies to congregate, so given the fact that she was hoping to run into her countrymen, Heron Manor was the ideal place for her.

There was a good chance she was going to be there that very night, but there was one problem. Given how guarded Lan was being, there was a danger that she would hide herself too well and they would end up missing her. If they wanted to avoid that outcome, they needed to stand out as much as possible. And there was just one way to do that—dancing the waltz more beautifully than anyone else in Heron Manor!

—is how the situation was explained to Sybilla.

“…I mean, I get it, but like,” she grumbled in a subdued mutter. At the moment, she was frowning and holding a certain something that Belias had procured for her. “Even so, what the hell?! Did they run outta cloth when they were makin’ this or something?!”

The something was a crimson dress.

The moment Sybilla spread it out, she could immediately tell how daring its design was. Its backside had almost no fabric at all, leaving the wearer’s back almost completely bare, and the front wasn’t exactly modest, either. Any way she wore it, it would undoubtably leave her entire clavicle exposed. And while the skirt section did have multiple layers of red cloth laid over each other, each swath had large slits cut in it, as well. It was the kind of dress that only a bona fide harlot would actually wear in public.

Sybilla tried to impress that fact upon the aides, but according to Lotus Doll, dresses like that were well within the party’s norms. After handing it over, Lotus Doll and Disintegrator Doll made their demand again, sounding somewhat annoyed.

“Just put it on already.” “This is the easiest way for you to stand out.”

“I feel like it’ll make me conspicuous in a bad way…”

“We’ll be dancing right alongside you.” “You’ll have plenty of backup.”

With that, they shoved her into a side room in Belias’s headquarters. The room was all but empty. It had a pair of small shelves, but there was nothing on them.

“I swear, I’m gonna get you guys. You’re gonna pay for this if it’s the last goddamn thing I do.”

Rather than lending an ear to Sybilla’s complaints, though, the aides simply closed the door on her. Then they locked the room from the outside. Apparently, that was where they wanted her to wait until the party started. The room didn’t have any windows, so escaping wasn’t really an option. Over in the corner, they’d left her some water and a few biscuits.

…How the hell do you put on a dress, again?

In addition to the dress, they’d also given her a corset and some chest pads to wear, but she couldn’t remember how to use any of them. She’d learned how back at her academy, but she used those skills so infrequently that they’d completely slipped her mind.

As she racked her brain, she looked up and made eye contact with someone wholly unexpected.

It was Klaus.

Klaus had already finished changing. He was wearing a very white dress shirt, a very black jacket, and a dark bow tie. At the moment, he was using the full-length mirror over in the corner to adjust his collar.

“………”

Sybilla gave him a wordless scowl.

The fact that the two of them were meeting back up was all well and good, but there was one big problem.

“…You know they told me to change in here, right?”

“That makes sense. I just finished getting dressed myself.”

“Get the hell out.”

“I can’t. My instructions are to wait here until it’s time for us to leave.”

Again, the room was empty save for a pair of shelves. There was nothing she could use to obstruct his view.

“…I’ll step away from the mirror and turn around,” Klaus suggested. “I’m afraid that’ll have to be good enough.”

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me…”

Sybilla slumped her shoulders and buried her face in her hands, but she couldn’t bring herself to demand that Belias offer her a different changing room. They were all elite spies there. Gritting her teeth and putting up with it was the professional thing to do.

She gave up and started getting changed. She’d picked up on the fact that Klaus didn’t have much of a libido, and whatever desires he did have, he’d never once directed them toward her or the others. She did trust him not to do anything sketchy.

However, that wasn’t to say she had no reservations.

She felt her heartbeat accelerate as she began taking off her clothes. She glanced over her shoulder just to be sure, but Klaus remained utterly motionless. She was taken by an odd sense of disappointment, but she wasn’t at all sure what kind of reaction she would have wanted out of him, so she decided not to think too hard about it.

The dress’s measurements were perfect, and memories of how to don such garments slowly came back to her as she slid the bright-red silk over her skin. Once she was almost done putting it on, though, a realization dawned on her.

“…Hey, you got a sec?”

“What is it?”

Klaus walked backward toward her.

“Wh-what the hell, man?! Gimme some space!”

“The room is bugged. If we’re going to talk, we need to do it quietly.”

Sybilla’s face went red-hot, and she shook it as she hurriedly leaped away. All the while, Klaus was as calm as could be.

Sybilla took a deep breath to compose herself. “N-nah, it’s not about the mission,” she said at her normal speaking volume. “I need you to do up the zipper on my back. I can’t reach it on my own.”

In order to allow the dress to hug its wearer’s skin as tightly as possible, it had one last zipper to keep the whole thing pinned together. Sybilla wasn’t happy about it, but she had no choice but to show Klaus her back.

“Got it. I’m turning around,” Klaus said. Then he did just that.

Sybilla revealed her exposed back to Klaus. When recollections of how little fabric there was on that side flashed through her head, she hastily bit her lip to shut that train of thought down. At least she wasn’t showing him her ass.

“……………………”

For a little while, Klaus didn’t go for the zipper.

Sybilla turned around and glared at him. “Quit starin’.”

“…Right. Sorry.”

She saw how earnest his expression was, so she knew he wasn’t thinking anything untoward.

She gave her body a light twist and looked at her own back in the mirror. It was pale, slender, and devoid of any excess fat. However, though it was difficult to spot at first glance, there was also a thin line just above her hips.

“The others all know about it. I’ve had it for a long time.”

The line was a scar. Sybilla had once taken a knife wound there, and the injury’s traces still lay across her waist. Fortunately, the dress cleanly covered up that spot.

“It made me think,” Klaus said softly.

“Huh?”

“That scar is a testament to your bravery and your kindness. I know it’s not something to comment on lightly, but I feel like it’s something you should be proud of.”

“Thanks. But you should save the compliments for Grete,” Sybilla replied with a laugh.

Klaus said nothing.

The instructors at her academy had probably told him all about the spy they called Pandemonium. They had told him about Sybilla’s origins—that she was the eldest daughter of a vicious gangster.

After the war, there was a group that had continually looted and robbed in the Din capital. The nation was a mess, and they took full advantage of that fact to line their pockets by attacking and robbing anyone they found, even women and children. What’s more, the group’s leader was a genius when it came to killing. He slaughtered his way through anyone who crossed him like it was a game. Uwe Appel was an active politician at the time, and to borrow Uwe’s words, it was like the man was descended from the Devil himself.

“…The Cannibals.”

That was the gang’s name.

Sybilla laughed self-mockingly. “In the world I lived in, violence was just a fact of life. I don’t even remember who it was that cut me anymore. All I know is that I’m lucky I got off with just a scar.”

“………”

“Back there, it was steal or be stolen from.”

Sybilla’s father had murdered people before her very eyes, her father’s enemies had gone after her and her siblings to get back at him, and her father had committed acts of violence against her himself. It was the kind of city where as soon as you set foot outside, you could get beaten up for the sole crime of being too young to fight back.

“Have you told the others about your past yet?” Klaus asked.

Sybilla shrugged, a little more dramatically than she meant to. “It ain’t exactly the kind of thing that comes up in small talk.”

I’m gonna be carryin’ this scar for the rest of my life.

As that thought crossed her mind, Klaus gently reached for the zipper.

“Hold on,” Sybilla said softly.

“What’s wrong?”

Sybilla gave Klaus’s puzzled question a quiet reply. “Could you touch it? W-with, like, your palm…?”

Klaus nodded and moved his hand over to the scar. His fingers hesitantly brushed it, and a moment later, he gently pressed his palm against it.

Warmth slowly spread from that spot, like she’d just huddled up to an open-air fire.

It felt kind of nice.

“…Are you still donating to that orphanage?” Klaus asked in a soft voice.

Sybilla smiled. “Yup. All my bonuses go straight there.”

“That’s bold.”

“I don’t want to worry about figurin’ out specific amounts. Plus, I get my living expenses paid separately.”

“If you’re ever hard up, let me know.”

“I’ll be sure to do that. But I’m not stoppin’ those donations any time soon.” Sybilla looked away bashfully. “That place is the closest thing I’ve got to a home. They’re the ones who sheltered me and my kid siblings. Sometimes, I like to close my eyes and just picture it. My donations, makin’ sure my brother and sister can eat as much as they want… Them, smilin’ like idiots… Even though I can’t see ’em, that’s enough.”

When Sybilla imagined her siblings running around happily, it filled her heart with warmth. That was what drove her.

“That’s enough. And that’s why I don’t want anyone takin’ anything more from me.” Sybilla’s lips trembled.

Those words came from the heart. After a childhood where she’d had everything stolen from her time and again, that was the one desire she’d never let go of. When she said it, though, images of the Avian members’ corpses flitted through her mind.

Sybilla pointed at the zipper and gestured for Klaus to do his thing. He quickly removed his hand from her back and pulled the zipper up. The dress tightened around her body.

She did a twirl in front of the mirror, and the dress’s skirt spun a little. She’d initially assumed that she would look ridiculous in it, but it was actually surprisingly decent.

“I’m ready—ready to get revenge for what was taken.”

Klaus’s sole reply to that was a brief “Magnificent.”

After waiting around for five hours, Belias took Sybilla and Klaus to Heron Manor. The building was as massive as a palace, with a rose garden stretching from its front gate to its entrance that took three whole minutes to traverse by car. When they opened the door, they were greeted by dozens of servants. Once Sybilla was done getting ready in the powder room, the servants led them to the main hall.

The hall was a gigantic atrium that could have fit at least five tennis courts in it with ease. A chandelier glittered from its ceiling, and the orchestra standing atop the main stage started playing as though to welcome them in. People poured into the hall without end and began exchanging pleasantries and small talk. Aristocrats and politicians numbered among their ranks, of course, but so did movie stars and comedians. There was a buffet laden with rows of delicacies near the stage.

That extravagant dance party was only made possible because of the ludicrous wealth its host had hoarded by fulfilling the government’s special wartime procurements. Upon seeing its excesses, Sybilla kind of understood how the communists calling for a revolution felt.

At six PM, the orchestra stopped playing, and the guest of honor, David Kris, said a few brief words. From there, everyone was free to eat and drink as they pleased, but unsurprisingly, the main center of attention was the dance floor. A number of mixed-gender pairs headed straight for the wide-open space in the center of the hall, and the magnates in attendance turned their gazes toward the floor so they could watch the evening’s festivities.

Sybilla and Klaus were standing right at the center of it all. Each dancer faced their partner and stood with their backs straight. The massive chandelier hung directly over their heads.

“I knew it’d be embarrassing, havin’ all these people starin’ at me,” Sybilla said.

“Just follow my lead, and you’ll do fine,” Klaus replied.

Then Sybilla heard a voice coming from her earring—or rather, from the radio embedded within it.

“Do you read me, dear guest?”

The voice was Amelie’s. She was watching the two of them from somewhere in the venue.

Sybilla lightly tapped the earring. That was her way of signaling I read you.

“We’re searching the entire grounds, but we’ve yet to locate Cloud Drift.”

“Figures. She’s pretty damn good at hiding.”

“Indeed. We suspect she’s either cleverly disguised herself or is using her formidable hiding techniques to remain out of sight. In short, you two are up.”

“Right.”

“Be conspicuous, dear guest. Conspicuous enough to draw Lan out of hiding.”

Sybilla slumped her shoulders. “So basically, we’re just bait. That’s fucked up.”

“It’s the only choice we had. Just put up with it until we find Lan.”

Klaus didn’t exactly look pleased, either. The fact that they were having to obey another team’s orders was causing him no shortage of stress.

“You would do well not to underestimate this manor,” Amelie said, sounding a little vexed. “Just so you know, standing out here will take more than your average dancing skills. Entrepreneurs and declining big fish gather here from across the nation in hopes of turning their fortunes around.”

Sybilla shot sidelong glances at the nearby pairs. Many of the pairs contained men in dapper new suits breathing excitedly and women whose faces were red from the sheer tension of it all, but there were also pairs standing tall and composed. For the latter group, this likely wasn’t their first rodeo.

The point of the party was to let the magnates judge people by the quality of their dancing. It sounded laughable at first, but in truth, it was surprisingly logical. By and large, there were three types of people who were good at dancing: people from reputable families who’d received a special education from a young age, people with the wealth or connections to hire good instructors, and people with the raw ingenuity to improve at dance through self-study. As such, any newcomers to the scene invariably drew attention.

The orchestra’s conductor gently gripped his baton.

The pairs gathered in the hall bowed to each other, then placed their arms around each other’s shoulders.

“When dancing, two people have to act as one. No matter how perfectly Bonfire leads, an unskilled partner will cause his footwork to fall apart. The two people need to make sure their coordination is impeccable,” Amelie warned her. “It won’t be easy, dancing a perfect waltz without any sort of proper practice.”

Sybilla grinned. “Whaddaya think? Sounds like they’re worried about our coordination.”

“It would seem so.”

Sybilla offered Klaus her hand. “That’s pretty fuckin’ funny.”

“That it is.”

Klaus took Sybilla’s left hand and slid his left arm around her waist.

The conductor brandished his baton, and the violinists all began playing dance music. The piece was in triple time, and it rang light and resonant through the hall.

As the performance began, Sybilla, Klaus, and the other pairs began moving. The mixed-gender pairs started rotating counterclockwise across the floor. With wine glasses in hand, the spectators glanced at each of the two dozen-odd pairs, but soon enough, they all found a single duo demanding their attention: Klaus and Sybilla.

“Hmm…?”

There was a fair bit of surprise in Amelie’s voice.

In that moment, the two of them were shining brighter than any other duo by far.

Neither of them had spent much time at all ballroom dancing. Klaus’s old teammate “Flamefanner” Heide had taught him the basics, and Sybilla had spent a handful of hours studying it at her academy, but that was about it. However, there was something they had that the other dancers didn’t—their outstanding athletic skills and honed physical abilities. Klaus led powerfully, and Sybilla maintained her posture from the tips of her toes all the way through her core to her fingertips as she followed, turning one moment then coming to a perfect pause the next. The tempo of their movements was nothing short of exquisite. They had the crowd’s full attention, and they moved gallantly to the center of the hall—

“Huh?” “Hm?”

—at which point they tripped and tumbled to the ground.

While the Heron’s Banquet was going on, things at Belias’s headquarters, the Kashard Doll Workshop, were silent. Most of its members were away, and the few who remained were hard at work poring over documents. The only sounds that filled the building were the unfurling of maps and the turning of pages as the Belias members tried to use Cloud Drift’s previous activities to deduce where she might be.

Down in the basement, a girl was waiting for an opportunity to get her hands on some intel.

…I’m surprised at how decently they treat captured spies around these parts.

That girl was Thea. As Belias’s hostage, Thea was in the middle of enjoying a tea cake in her isolation cell. Despite being a cell, though, the room was clean and furnished with a desk, a chair, and even a few books for her to occupy the time with. Once evening fell, her captors brought her a meal replete with tea and cakes. Her hands were shackled, but she had enough freedom of movement to get the food into her mouth.

An experience in her past had left her with zero good memories of being a hostage, but Belias had been downright gentlemanly with her, and they showed no signs of planning on torturing her. They’d taken her freedom, but that was all. As far as she could tell, they meant her no harm.

In that case, perhaps I should be a bit greedy…

She silently ran the cost-benefit analysis. Any tiny scraps of information she could get on Belias would be invaluable. She summoned up her courage and directed a question past the cell door. “Excuse me? I’m so sorry to bother you.”

The only person outside her cell was the single surly guard sitting across from it. He was a young man with glasses and a lean face. “………………What?” he replied, annoyed.

“Would you mind bringing me a damp towel? This sweat is killing me. The nights here are cold, but it’s terribly warm down here in the basement.”

“………”

“I know it’s rude of me to ask, but it would mean so much if you could wipe me down. My hands can’t reach behind my back, you see.”

She writhed a little and gave him her most bewitching smile. However, the man’s reaction was ice-cold. “There’s something you should know.”

“…Hmm?”

“The only reason you’re still alive is because of Bonfire. Harming you and making an enemy out of him would be more trouble than it’s worth. If not for that, we’d be torturing you this very moment.”

“Oh no, a threat? How ruthless.”

“Sorry, but your transparent tricks aren’t going to work.”

The man shook his head as though to say the conversation was over. Thea had shot her shot, and she couldn’t even get him to look at her. All she’d done was failed to get a conversation started, but she felt defeat’s cold sting all the same.

These people aren’t messing around…

She hadn’t been pulling out all the stops, but she could tell now that Belias wasn’t the kind of opponent that would fall for a half-hearted attempt at seduction. Making haphazard passes at a counterintelligence unit seemed like a bad idea. When the man threatened her, he’d meant it—at the moment, Thea was being granted her tenure on life by the slimmest of margins. The equilibrium there was a tenuous one. If Belias changed their minds, they could snuff Thea out with trivial ease. Any attempts she made at gathering intel could well prove fatal. She was safe for now, but she had no proof that that would continue being the case.

Without meaning to, she bit her lip.

“Poor thing,” the man muttered. “…It has to wear away at you, having your own foolish countrymen turn to base terrorism like that.”

In all likelihood, those words weren’t actually meant for Thea. He was simply commenting on the genuine pity he felt for her.

That was why it hit Thea so hard.

Foolish? What does this man think he’s talking about?

She could feel heat rising up from the pit of her stomach, and she had to choke back an involuntary urge to refute his statement. She didn’t care what he said about her, but Avian was a different story.

As Thea sat there with her life in immediate peril, her thoughts turned to a woman: “Feather” Pharma, an Avian member she’d gotten especially close with.

It was sixteen days into the honeymoon, and for better or for worse, two weeks had been plenty for the two teams to abandon their modesty around each other.

Once they finished their training for the day, one of the Avian members made an unexpected declaration.

“Tonight, me and the other ladies are gonna have a sleepover here, ’kaaay?”

““““Go home!!””””

The speaker was a plump woman with long, unkempt hair—“Feather” Pharma.

With her as their ringleader, the female Avian members—her, Lan, and Qulle—ignored Lamplight’s demands as per usual and swarmed up the stairs to the second floor. Whenever one of them found an empty room, they would ooh and aah and start setting their luggage down.

By that point, there was no stopping them.

Dinner and bath time that evening were a good five times noisier than usual, and when night fell, Qulle made the inane suggestion that they stay up all night playing I Spy, Lan found herself getting chased around by Annette again, and Pharma started pursuing Erna after deciding to use her as a body pillow.

By the time Pharma visited Thea’s bedroom, it was already past midnight.

“Hey, Thea, hey, Grete—let’s have us a girls’ talk!” Pharma said excitedly.

She had Erna’s limp body tucked under her arm. Erna herself was fast asleep. She’d been unable to escape from Pharma, and after getting captured, she’d decided to just accept her fate as a body pillow and dozed off.

“Can you please at least knock?” Thea said with a frown.

“…There really is no controlling you, is there?”

The other person with Thea was a girl with bobbed red hair and a glass-like fragility who occasionally stopped by Thea’s room—“Daughter Dearest” Grete. She frowned as well.

Pharma plopped down on the bed and laid Erna’s sleeping head on her lap. Thea sat down on the bed as far from Pharma as she could, and Grete took a seat in a chair.

“I certainly have nothing against talking about romance,” Thea said as an icebreaker, “but honestly, what about Avian? You are a coed team, after all. Have any love affairs ever blossomed in your neck of the woods?”

“I’m curious, as well. Love between spies is a topic I’m quite interested in…” Grete gave Pharma a fervent look. Given she was madly in love with Klaus, it was no wonder she was so keen to hear about the subject.

Pharma laid a finger on her chin. “I wouldn’t say never, buuut that’s not really our vibe.”

“Oh?”

“Fascinating…”

“Vics is a total hunk, don’t get me wrong, but I could never get serious with a teammate. It’d be too messy. And the others probably all feel the same way.”

Thea and Grete both let out impressed noises. The two of them spent most of their time with the same insular group, so there was something really exciting about getting to hear gossip from outside their own circle.

Pharma playfully went on. “For me, see, what really gets me going is falling in love with my enemies.”

““What…?””

“You know how sometimes you’re in a foreign country, and you have to infiltrate a hostile org? Well, when I do, I like to get real close with one of the guys in charge.”

“Isn’t that incredibly dangerous, though?” Thea chided her.

“Look, I like what I like. Here, I can show you.”

Pharma rose from the bed and spun in place.

“I’m code name Feather—and I’d say it’s time to descend into depravity.”

It didn’t look as though she’d done anything special, but something about the air seemed to have fundamentally changed. Thea’s heartbeat quickened, and her body broke out in a damp sweat. Her eyes started drying up, at which point she realized that she’d been forgetting to blink. She couldn’t move an inch, yet at the same time, every alarm bell in her head was going off.

To be blunt, she was distressed. She didn’t know why, but there was no denying it.

“Isn’t it unsettling?” Pharma let out an amused laugh. “It’s just a bit of psychological manipulation. I’m using subtle movements of my body to make men feel uneasy so they become dependent on me. I love it. That’s what really gets my blood flowing, you see,” she said, casually stating the outrageous. There was an ominous smile plastered across her face. “It’s oh so stimulating, you know. Having love and lust all swirling together behind enemy lines—one wrong move means you’re dead.”

Her eyes were filled with a deranged sort of glee. She gazed at Thea and Grete for a little while to gauge their reactions.

“………………………………………”

The ensuing silence lasted for a good long while. Thea cocked her head. She wasn’t sure what Pharma’s aim was.

Then Pharma let out an excited “Ooh, right!” and clapped her hands together. “Since we’re all here, we should get everyone together and see who has the raunchiest story!” She shifted Erna’s head off her lap and laid it to the side, then charged out of the room.

Thea and Grete stared blankly after her.

“…Well, she certainly stays true to her desires.”

“…Perhaps too much so.”

At that point, there was really nothing else they could say.

From then on, Pharma often slept over at Heat Haze Palace and made no small amount of trouble for the girls. As far as spies went, she was a good deal more touchy-feely than most. She would wrap people up in embraces with no regard for the time or place, and she had zero qualms about barging into people’s private spaces.

Thinking back now, her behavior probably stemmed from the unshakable confidence she had in her abilities. She used everything from her respiration, her tone, the way she moved her fingers, the way she turned her neck, and the myriad rhythms, timings, and spacings thereof to send people’s emotions into disarray. Merely standing across from someone was enough for her to toy with their heart.

That was who “Feather” Pharma was—a fearless mentalist and a master of cajolement.

………What an odd, odd person she was.

Pharma came across as gentle, but in truth, she had the most extreme talent in all of Avian. Thea had the ability to forge amicable relationships with her enemies, but what Pharma did was something else altogether. She got people addicted to her and dominated them into partnerships that way.

Thea had learned a lot from her.

She shifted her attention back to her cell. After observing every last one of its details, she slowly closed her eyes. As she feigned sleep, she placed a hand up to her ear and focused her senses.

It didn’t take long for her to figure out what had changed.

There are fewer footsteps up in the hallway than before. Most of Belias is out doing fieldwork.

Once she finished her analysis, she sucked in a deep breath.

If I want to make a move, it’s now or never…!

Trying to gather intel from an enemy base was a risky move, and the guard had just reprimanded her. Given her weak mental fortitude, she had no confidence she could pull it off. Making the attempt would be totally out of character for her.

I have to take joy in being behind enemy lines.

I have to let my pounding heart drive a surge of lust.

“I’m sorry to keep bothering you,” Thea called to the man in the hallway. “But I’m afraid the stress is getting to me. I really need to use the bathroom.”

The response came immediately. The guard sounded just as annoyed as before. “…Can’t you just hold it in?”

“It’s embarrassing to admit, but I really can’t,” Thea replied with a smile. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen, would you? If my boss came back and found my clothes all soiled, I fear it wouldn’t reflect very well on you.”

It was silent for a bit.

Eventually, the cell door swung open, and a woman dressed in a suit came in. She wore a serious expression and looked to be in her midtwenties. Another Belias member, no doubt.

“I’ll take you there in his stead, dear guest.”

She briskly unfastened Thea’s shackles, then replaced them with a different set of shackles and a leash. Apparently, they were going to keep her restrained while she went back and forth. Considering that she was a hostage, it was a logical enough measure.

Thea smiled merrily. “I get a woman to escort me? How lovely. It would have been embarrassing having a man come along.”

“Master’s orders,” the woman responded in a businesslike tone. “We like to avoid running into any issues. There are some men who get loose lips around women as attractive as you.”

“How wonderfully sensible. Perhaps I should be taking notes.”

“There’s a reason we all respect her so much.”

After replying, the woman went silent as though to make it abundantly clear that she wasn’t going to give away any unnecessary information.

The people here are like stone walls, Thea thought as they went down the corridor. Just like the guard, the woman wasn’t giving her an inch. Plus, seduction was going to become that much harder now that she wasn’t dealing with a man. But the thing is, no human is infallible.

Thea chuckled and put on her most mature smile. “Are you sure that won’t backfire, though?”

“Huh?”

“After all—you prefer women yourself, don’t you?”

The woman whirled around and stared at Thea in astonishment. The look on her face was one of pure shock, and Thea met it with a composed smile.

“How could you—?”

“I can tell these things. Haven’t you ever seen someone and you just knew, despite not knowing why?”

That was a lie.

Thea had no ability to peer into someone’s heart that quickly. She’d simply made a guess based on the level of respect the woman had shown toward Amelie. However, that was fine. The lie was all she needed, regardless of whether she had any basis for her claims. Just to say something unexpected enough to draw the other party’s attention and make their eyes go wide. Just to shake her opponent with how confidently she was willing to state it.

Because once she’d stared them in the eye long enough, Thea did have the power to peer into their heart.

I’m code name Dreamspeaker—and it’s time to lure them to their ruin.

As Thea whispered silently to herself, she took a step toward the woman and gave her the kind of smile one would a close friend.

“Shall we have us a little chat in the bathroom?”

“Huh? What—what’re you—?” the woman stammered, glancing down in embarrassment.

“This must be fate at work. I have a feeling that you and I are going to hit it off splendidly.”

Thea reached out with her shackled hand and stroked the woman’s cheek.

Once she’d looked into someone’s heart, Thea had never once failed to turn them into putty in her hands.

Over at Heron Manor, the worst dance in the manor’s entire history was just getting started.

“Sybilla, you need to gently face the moon like an injured heron fighting through the pain.”

“How the hell’s that supposed to tell me ANYTHING?!”

“Then you need to go left as though you were going right.”

“See, now I think you’re just doin’ this shit on purpose!”

Klaus’s instructions were a good ten times more abstract than normal, and Sybilla, for her part, was making no efforts to keep her voice down as she let him know how she felt about that fact. The spectators around the hall could do nothing but stare blankly at them. Each and every one of them was thinking the same thing.

“““““What a pair of complete oddballs…”””””

Their bafflement was understandable. The duo had performed flawlessly at the start, but ever since they took that big spill, they’d been completely out of sync. Under normal circumstances, people who danced that poorly were simply kicked out of the hall. The strange thing was, though, that each side of the pair was clearly a skilled dancer. Each movement they made spoke to their well-trained cores, and the way they used the tempo made it clear that they were no amateurs.

For all that, however, their chemistry was atrocious. It was like they were on two totally different pages. The direction each party wanted to move and the way they wanted to time their steps never seemed to line up, and they constantly bumped into each other and fell down all over again. The spectators had never seen dancing that erratic, and they had no idea how to respond.

In the end, the two of them both lost their balance at once—

“Hmm?” “Ah!” ““Y-you two?!””

—and the Sybilla-Klaus pair ran straight into the pair dancing beside them, comprising Lotus Doll and Disintegrator Doll. The four of them all crashed into a nearby table, yanking down its tablecloth and sending its plates full of food tumbling to the floor.

Sybilla reached out to try to break her fall, but she collided with Lotus Doll, and Klaus’s back slammed into Disintegrator Doll. They all tumbled ingloriously beneath the table.

“…Well, I suppose that’s certainly one way to make yourselves conspicuous,” Amelie said in exasperation through the radio. “I see now. The Greatest Spy in the World… When he truly gets going, I suppose nobody can keep up.”

Despite the situation, her analysis was as composed as ever.

Sybilla brushed off the shish kebab that had landed on her shoulder and crawled out from under the table. Then she glared at Lotus Doll as the latter came up from beneath the tablecloth with a dazed look on her face.

“We’re swappin’!” Sybilla roared.

“What…?”

“I can’t take this shit anymore! You go dance with my damn boss!”

In practical terms, they stood a very real chance of getting kicked out of the party. Lotus Doll’s eyes went wide, and Sybilla gave her back a hard shove.

Lotus Doll didn’t seem to know what to make of that, but eventually, she got her orders. “Dance,” Amelie said through her radio. “And tell Bonfire to hold back this time. If that man harms one of my subordinates, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“Understood.”

Klaus took Lotus Doll by the hand and headed back to the dance floor. Instead of leading forcefully like he had a moment ago, he began dancing at a slower pace. His gaze was focused directly on Lotus Doll, which caused her cheeks to flush.

After checking to make sure that everything was squared away on that front, Sybilla headed over to the waiting room. The room adjoined the hall and was designed for people to fix their clothes and makeup in, and fortunately, it was currently unoccupied. A series of chairs and large tables were scattered haphazardly across the room.

Sybilla fanned her bright-red face and plopped herself down in one of the chairs. “Well, that was embarrassing as all hell!”

“Oh yes. It was most unbecoming.” The reply came from a boy in a formal suit—Disintegrator Doll. Like a good chaperone, he’d followed right behind her. “I’ve never seen a dance grab that much attention before, nor do I expect to ever see it again. What a fascinating show you put on. I thought the laughter would never cease.”

“You makin’ fun of me?”

While Sybilla was in the middle of glaring at Disintegrator Doll, the waiting room’s door swung open and a woman clad in a Gothic outfit came in. It was Amelie. Apparently, not even an event like the one they were attending was enough to get the spy known as Puppeteer to change how she dressed.

“You get full marks, young lady,” Amelie said.

Sybilla shrugged. “If you’re just here to make snide comments, your guy here beat you to it. So, you find Lan?”

“No. Neither hide nor hair.”

“What?”

“In the moment after you clumsily tripped, and all eyes in the hall were on you, my people and I checked the audience—but not a single one of them offered any sort of unusual reaction.” Amelie gave her hand an uninterested wave. “The party’s been going on with no major disturbances or any real trouble to speak of. The only thing resembling a problem that’s come up is that the staff is in a tizzy over some food thief.”

“Over a what now?”

“They say an entire serving platter of food disappeared.”

“The hell’s up with that? You think Lan’s behind it?”

“That would certainly be amusing, but I very much doubt it.”

From the sound of it, they had a truly audacious robber on their hands.

“Getting back to the topic at hand, though,” Amelie said, “there’s only one conclusion to be drawn—Cloud Drift isn’t in Heron Manor. Our suspicions were off the mark.”

“So all that dancin’ was for nothing?”

“There’s no need to be so discouraged. We simply need to revise our initial hypothesis.”

Amelie sat down in the chair beside Sybilla’s. Without missing a beat, Disintegrator Doll poured her a cup of tea from the pot sitting in the corner.

“Sybilla…I have a question for you, given your position as Cloud Drift’s friend.”

“As her friend…”

“Does Lan truly want to get in contact with Lamplight?”

Sybilla grimaced. “Whaddaya mean? Of course she does.”

“Are you certain? After three weeks have gone by and she hasn’t shown her face around you so much as once?”

“…………”

“If she wanted to, surely she could have found you by now. Spotting you would have been simplicity itself if she was anywhere in Heron Manor, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Can you really attribute your failure to join up with her to simple bad luck?”

Sybilla crossed her arms and let out a low grumble. “Maybe she’s hurt real bad and can’t move around much,” she speculated.

“That isn’t possible. We found hair and fingerprints at the watch store from last night that we suspect belong to her. Up until at least last night, she was hale and hearty enough to fire off those shots we found.”

“…Oh yeah, right.”

“I suspect our profiling on her was incorrect—as was Bonfire’s.”

Sybilla’s instinctive reaction was that there was no way that could be. Klaus’s outstanding intuition couldn’t possibly have led him astray, and with the way Amelie had cold read Sybilla’s abilities during their first meeting, she was no slouch, either.

If that was the case, though, then how could she explain how “Cloud Drift” Lan had evaded them both so successfully?

As Sybilla sank into thought, Amelie lowered her voice a smidge. “It’s entirely possible that Cloud Drift was the one who killed the rest of Avian.”

Sybilla’s eyes shot wide open. “The fuck?” It was a horrible theory, one that had never so much as crossed her mind. “There’s no goddamn way she—”

“If anything, isn’t that the most logical conclusion? It explains both why Avian fell and why Lan doesn’t want to meet up with Lamplight.”

“B-but she’d never…”

“Don’t be naive. If there’s one thing this world has scores of, it’s wretched, miserable traitors.”

“…………”

Under the weight of Amelie’s cold stare, Sybilla found herself at a loss for words.

Then the waiting room door swung open and a woman in a dress came charging in. Sybilla assumed it was another attendee until the woman whispered something in Amelie’s ear. In truth, it was an undercover Belias agent.

Amelie grinned. “Ah, perfect timing. Come with us.”

“’Kay…”

“I have something interesting to show you.”

Disintegrator Doll pulled back Amelie’s chair, and Amelie rose to her feet. It wasn’t clear when, but at some point, she’d produced a conductor’s baton.

Sybilla didn’t know where this was going, but she didn’t like it one bit.

Sybilla could still hear the sound of violins. Despite the disturbance she and Klaus had caused, the dance party had continued going on strong.

Amelie headed outside and circled the manor with seven of her subordinates in tow. A place like Heron Manor must have had guards, but they didn’t pass any. Amelie’s people must have already cleared the area.

“Is Lotus Doll still dancing inside?” Amelie asked from the front of the procession.

Of her two trusty aides, the boy was the only one present at the moment.

“We’ll be fine without her, Master,” Disintegrator Doll replied proudly.

“How heartening to hear.”

“It’s very unlike her, getting so giddy about dancing with an attractive man. You should fire her.”

“Well now, I’m not so sure about that.”

Sybilla frowned at the corny conversation. “H-hey, where exactly are you takin’ me—?”

“As you may recall, I explained how Heron Manor was the perfect spot for spies to congregate.”

Amelie came to a stop.

They’d just arrived at the rear of the building. Due to the overgrown trees and shrubbery, it was hard to see much of anything back there.

“I’m told we just located some Galgad spies. How sad for them, truly,” Amelie said, not sounding sad in the slightest.

“Here, use these,” Disintegrator Doll said as he handed Sybilla a pair of binoculars. She poked her head out of an opening in the foliage.

Behind the manor, there was a patio where an assortment of men and women were taking in the night air. It was a place where people could go for a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the party inside. For whatever reason, there was an almost salacious atmosphere to the way the guests there were chatting with their wine glasses set off to the side.

“Uh…”

“The pair by the fifth window from the right.”

Even with that description, it took Sybilla a minute to figure out who she was supposed to be looking for. At first glance, the people in question looked like nothing more than a well-to-do middle-aged couple. They were nigh indistinguishable from half the other guests, and nothing about them screamed “spies” whatsoever.

However, Belias was convinced that they were enemy agents seeking to undermine their beloved nation.

“You think they got somethin’ to do with Lan?”

“Alas, I suspect their motives for being here are completely unrelated. My men caught them discussing how to blackmail a member of our military whom I’m not at liberty to identify.”

Sure enough, that didn’t sound like it had anything to do with the search for Lan. Sybilla tilted her head. “From lookin’ at them, I never even woulda thought they were from Galgad.”

“They aren’t. They’re Fend citizens who forsook their patriotic duty and became filthy rebel traitors conspiring against the Crown.” Amelie raised her conductor’s baton. “Programme Number 96. Programme Number 65. Programme Number 1.”

The Belias agents scaled the building.

All in all, there were nine people pleasantly chatting on the patio. Suddenly, all of them looked at the night sky.

Some fireworks had just gone off.

As they did, the four Belias agents leaped from the roof and snatched away their targets. What’s more, all the sounds they made while doing so were covered up by the noise from the fireworks. They had just kidnapped multiple people in the space of a few seconds while remaining completely undetected by everyone else in the area—it was nothing short of a magic trick. One person covered each target’s mouth, and another grabbed their legs and dropped them off the patio.

After the woman landed, one of the agents pressed the woman’s neck against the ground with their knee. Another firework burst out, as did the sound of bone shattering.

“Wha—?”

“Only one of them needs to survive for questioning.”

The woman, whose cervical vertebrae were no doubt broken, didn’t move. She’d died instantly. However, her male partner was still resisting. When the Belias agents dropped him off the patio, he wriggled free from his restraints and made a break for the rear garden’s trees.

Amelie waved her baton. “Programme Number 95.”

“If you seriously think you can escape from Master—”

Disintegrator Doll cut the man off like he knew where the man was going to run before the man himself did. He was holding a large hammer.

“—then you’re so thick that it’s actually funny.”

A series of dull thuds followed.

Disintegrator Doll had struck the man several times in rapid succession. The man soon sank to his knees, at which point Disintegrator Doll grabbed him by the collar and began dragging him over to Amelie.

By the time the fireworks show was over, all the Belias agents were safely back behind cover, and the people on the patio began exchanging their thoughts about the fireworks, none the wiser as to what had just transpired. They didn’t even notice that the couple who had been there moments before was gone.

“………………………………”

Sybilla was struck speechless at what Belias had just accomplished.

Eventually, Disintegrator Doll got to Amelie and offered her his captive. The look on his face was that of a proud hunting dog displaying the spoils of his chase. The man was still conscious, but his limbs were hanging limp as though all the strength had left his body.

“Disintegrator Doll deftly broke his ribs,” Amelie said. “It’s impressive work, considering the care he had to take not to damage any of the target’s organs. That said, if our new friend tries to move, his broken ribs will dig into his skin in an exquisitely excruciating way.” That certainly explained why the man wasn’t moving. “If not for Bonfire, this is the exact same torture you would have been subjected to.”

The threat wasn’t the least bit veiled.

At a glance, the man Disintegrator Doll had dragged over looked like an ordinary, kindly citizen. He was a little on the rounder side, but that just made him come across as even more harmless. It was the kind of guy you would expect to find working at some local restaurant.

“The pleasure is mine,” Amelie said with a smile. “I’m with the CIM. I assume any further explanation would be redundant.”

“P-please, I just want to live…”

Hearing the term CIM was enough to tell the man everything he needed to know. The Fend Commonwealth’s intelligence agency was the subject of awe and fear among its people.

“I-I’ll tell you everything… Who I work with, anything else you want to know… I’ll sing like a bird.”

“Take him back to headquarters and hand him off to the torture squad, if you’d be so kind,” Amelie spat.

One of her agents shoved a gag in the man’s mouth and stuffed him into a large duffel bag alongside the woman’s corpse. The man twisted and turned to try to resist, but all that did was cause his broken ribs to stab him, and he let out an agonized cry.

Amelie watched them all go. “He turned on his colleagues like it was nothing.”

From beside her, Sybilla shot her a glare. “…What’re you tryin’ to say?”

“That it doesn’t take much to get someone to betray their nation and their allies,” Amelie replied softly. “And Cloud Drift is no exception.”

That was why she’d made Sybilla watch. Either that, or it was another attempt at intimidation. Perhaps she wanted to show Sybilla an overwhelming display of force to shake her up and get her to give away information she didn’t mean to.

If her goal was to scare Sybilla, it had worked. Belias had slain their own citizens like it was nothing. It wasn’t Sybilla’s first brush with homicide—she grew up surrounded by violence, she’d lived in the world of espionage for the past ten months, and even Avian had killed mafia members in order to carry out their mission in Longchon—but the person Belias had just killed was someone that by all rights they should have had a duty to protect.

“…What is it that lets you go to such lengths? They’re your own people.”

“Our duty to protect the Crown takes precedence over any and all moral rules.”

“What?”

“Our righteousness is absolute,” Amelie declared. “We are always just, and we do not err.”

Her tone was sharp. Its raw pressure left no room for debate.

All the agents standing around Amelie and glaring at Sybilla had eyes burning with purpose. Their pride was a force that had protected the Commonwealth for many an age.

“Now then, young lady, I trust you understand the stance we ought to take? If there’s anything you’re still hiding from us—”

“Master.” Another one of Amelie’s agents came running over. The Belias members looked over at him disinterestedly, but when they saw how pale he was, they were struck speechless. “Something terrible has happened.”

His voice was hollow from shock.

“Crown Prince Darryn was just assassinated.”

Everyone present gasped. Not even Sybilla had anything to say. They all just froze, as though time itself was standing still. For Belias, that news was unthinkable. Protecting that man was their entire raison d’être.

Amelie let out a lifeless moan. “This can’t…be happening…”

The Belias agent quickly delivered the world-shattering news.

As Prince Darryn was returning to the palace from a visit to a Ministry of Defense research institution, he was shot with a rifle as he stepped out of his car. The bullet flew with pinpoint accuracy, weaving past every member of Prince Darryn’s security detail and blowing his head clean off. The prince had a number of counterintelligence teams aside from Belias in charge of protecting him, and not a single one of them was able to prevent the assassination.

Sybilla intuitively grasped just how little sense it made. The upside was just staggeringly nonexistent. Fend was the second-largest military superpower in the world, and it was impossible to imagine this act of terrorism having enough benefits to outweigh the cost of making a foe out of the entire Commonwealth. The Fend populace’s grief would send the country into turmoil for a short while, but it wouldn’t last long at all. Only the most deranged of revolutionaries would think that something like this was a good idea.

There could be little doubt that it was an act that would turn the entire world against its perpetrator.

For the first little while, Sybilla flat out didn’t believe the news, and the Belias personnel probably felt the exact same way. Nobody said a word as everyone got in Belias cars and drove to the scene of the crime. When they arrived at the palace in Hurough, they found a swarm of people despite the late hour. The local police were regulating traffic and keeping people from coming in, but despite the way the masses were being kept out, word of what had happened would eventually spread.

The palace’s entrance was sprayed with bright-red blood. There was just enough of it on the ground to all have come from the same person. The body had already been moved, and police officers and CIM-looking people were shouting angrily as they rushed to and from the area. Their eyes were bloodshot from their efforts to track down and detain the sniper.

Amelie grabbed Sybilla and Klaus by their collars and violently dragged them to the scene. “This is where Crown Prince Darryn was killed,” she said pointedly. “Search, dear guests.”

“I dunno what you want us to do…,” Sybilla said with a frown. Amelie could show her the murder scene all she liked, but there wasn’t much Sybilla could actually do about it. The body wasn’t even there anymore.

“Search it, you cur!” Amelie growled. She didn’t often raise her voice like that, but now she was taking all her vitriol and slamming it right in their faces.

Belias had failed in their mission. They’d failed to capture their suspect from the first assassination attempt, and they’d failed to prevent the actual assassination from occurring. And it wasn’t just Belias’s responsibility, either. The Fend Commonwealth’s entire CIM intelligence agency had been bested.

“Taking it out on us isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Klaus said, shaking his head in disappointment. “There aren’t any signs that Lan was behind this. Show me the evidence you’ve been keeping from us. It might be important here.”

Amelie was having none of it. “You really think I’ll just hand you our top-secret intelligence?” She gave an irritated click of her tongue. “………The bullet that killed His Royal Highness was manufactured in the Din Republic.”

“I don’t doubt it. But that alone isn’t proof that Lan did anything.”

“Do you have any other suspects in mind?”

“Finding those is your job.”

“………”

“I fear I’m repeating myself, but Lan had nothing to do with this assassination.”

“You need to tell me everything you know, now. Or the hostage dies.”

“I’ve already told you everything I can,” Klaus replied, giving Amelie a pitying look. “Now, what’s the plan? Are we continuing the search? What can we do to help? Or are you going to insist on torturing your hostage, knowing full well it means that one of us doesn’t make it out of this alive?”

Amelie released their collars.

“Just go.”

“What…?” Sybilla said.

“You’re in the way. I’ll release the hostage, too. It’s not like you people were ever going to be able to catch Cloud Drift anyway.” With each passing word, Amelie’s voice trembled a little more. “I had the honor of meeting His Royal Highness once… I’m but a humble denizen of the shadows, yet he offered me a smile all the same. He was our light, and it was up to us to protect him. He gave us hope all the way through to the Great War’s end… I knew that protecting him was our duty, and yet…”

She buried her eyes beneath her fingers. Teardrops began spilling between them.

“Oh, Prince Darryn…”

She fell to her knees atop the wet ground and began loudly sobbing. Sybilla had always assumed that she was an emotionless automaton of a person, but clearly that wasn’t the case. The iron mask had been stripped off, revealing the crying woman beneath.

Klaus tapped Sybilla’s shoulder. “Let’s go. There’s nothing we can do here.”

“Yeah,” she replied.

Amelie and her people were about to devote their full efforts toward finding the sniper. The two of them would only be a nuisance.

“I just want to know one thing.”

A voice came from behind them. When they turned around, they saw that Amelie’s eyes were red and puffy.

“Are you our enemies? Or our allies?”

“Allies,” Klaus answered. “We have no intention of opposing the Fend Commonwealth.”

“Then find Cloud Drift and bring her to us as fast as you can.”

“And what will you do then?”

“Torture her, then dispose of her.”

Amelie’s tear-dampened eyes were incandescent with rage.

“And know that if you try to shelter Cloud Drift from us—the CIM will devote everything it has toward destroying the Din Republic.”

Klaus offered no reply to that.

The world was starting to warp.

Ink black malice had stolen yet another ray of hope.

It started raining that night, and the droplets pounded hard on the windows. The weather report said the rain was supposed to stop later that night, but it certainly wasn’t showing any signs of letting up. The echoes of the pattering rain were so intense—like it was trying to wash the entire town away.

“………Yeep.” Erna was in the kitchen simmering a milk soup. She balanced an ice pack on her head as she stirred her spatula. “I made so much. Too much, even.”

She continued mixing the butter, flour, aromatic vegetables, and bacon around in the pot. Then she scooped some out onto a small dish and blew on it several times to cool it down enough for a taste test.

As soon as she bit into the vegetables, though, she couldn’t help but sigh.

“………This isn’t right.”

They were cooked all the way through, and she’d made sure to buy them as fresh as possible. However, something was still off.

Queneau’s vegetables were so much tastier than this…

Erna closed her eyes and tried to figure out what the difference was.

It was twenty-four days into the honeymoon, and Avian and Lamplight had gotten closer than ever before. Lamplight’s vacation had just ended, and they were starting to get back to their domestic missions. They often asked Klaus for advice when they reached dead ends in their tasks, but he tended not to be much help, and it was in times like those that having Avian around proved to be a godsend. The Lamplight girls hated to admit it, but their missions always seemed to go smoother when they followed Avian’s advice.

The two teams were deepening their bonds both on and off the clock. However, that was precisely what made one thing stand out—namely, the fact that one of Avian’s members didn’t engage with Lamplight at all. Instead, he spent most of his time over by the planters he’d set up by the edge of the yard.

“………………………Aye. They’re getting ripe.”

The person in question was “South Wind” Queneau, a large man who wore a disturbing mask. His massive frame made him look almost ursine, and instead of greeting any of the girls, he just kept to himself and quietly watered and fertilized his vegetables.

Where did he get the nerve to set up a vegetable garden in a yard that wasn’t even his? What was he trying to accomplish through his visits to Heat Haze Palace? The girls had more questions than they knew what to do with, but when they tried asking his other male teammates Vindo and Vics, the only answers they got were “Hell if I know” and “Mysterious, isn’t he? ♪” By the sound of it, their relationship with Queneau was mostly just professional.

In the end, Lamplight decided that they had better occasionally keep tabs on their suspicious colleague. That day, it was Lily and Erna who were keeping an eye on him. They kept watch from the shadows and observed him to make sure he wasn’t getting up to any funny business.

“Seriously, who goes and plants a garden in someone else’s yard?” Lily asked.

“We need to be careful. Avian isn’t bound by common sense,” Erna replied.

Queneau crouched down in front of his planters with his back turned to them. The two of them continued their hushed conversation.

“He’s acting so weird. He just moved a bug onto my flowers.”

“You grow flowers, Big Sis Lily?”

“Yup. Most of them are poisonous, though. There are some species that are hard to source, so I grow them myself.”

“Wow, how diligent.”

“That’s why Queneau’s vegetables are my rivals!”

“Shh. If you raise your voice like that, he might hear you.”

Queneau turned around. “………Nay. I could hear you the whole time. You’re very noisy.”

““?!””

The man’s voice was low and deep.

Too embarrassed to keep hiding, Lily laughed awkwardly and strode out into the open. Despite Erna’s shyness, she summoned up her courage and followed along after.

“I’m just gonna ask you straight up, then,” Lily said as she stood across from Queneau. “Why don’t you pester us like the rest of Avian does?”

“……Because this is my role,” Queneau replied with a small nod. “…I’m Vindo and Vics’ shadow……… There’s no need for me to stand out. I exist to remain hidden to the end… I came here as an ally of Avian… It was duty, nothing more…” Each and every one of his words rang with an unmistakable weight. “………It’s better that I not draw attention.”

His voice had a very Zen sort of acceptance to it. Lily and Erna sensed in him an uncommon degree of resolve. Vindo and Vics were both tremendously talented individuals, and there had to have been times when being around two people that skilled made a person feel small.

Lily and Erna gasped. “Could it be?” “Are those your convictions as a spy talking?”

“………No, I’m just shy.”

““That’s such a dumb reason!”” the two girls shouted, unable to stop themselves. “But I totally get it!” Erna said a beat later.

Queneau looked at Erna through his mask. As a fellow shrinking violet, perhaps there was something he saw in her.

“………You’re different.”

Erna tilted her head. “Huh?”

“…You’re not a Bloodfolk… But you exist in a similar space… In that case… Behold. This is my technique…”

Queneau spread his hands out wide.

“I’m code name South Wind—and it’s time to howl unseen…”

In each hand, he was holding a tube. They were thin and made of rubber, and each extended into the planters by his sides—the ones where he’d planted his vegetables. Cracks spread across the soil like a chick hatching from its egg, and not a moment later, the cords and vegetables went flying into the air.

The tubes had just burst into flames.

Fire billowed up all around Lily and Erna, surrounding them. Neither of them had even noticed that the planters were rigged that way, but clearly, the tubes had been full of oil.

“………This world is too radiant for me………,” Queneau said as he watched the flames rise into the sky. “…It’s full of things that would suffocate a man as twisted as I… But look. Because of that…the flames that hide until the very, very end, then rise on up…possess a special beauty… The color of those flames is the true shape of my soul…”

When he lifted his face, it created a small gap between his mask and his skin. The expression just barely visible through that opening was as innocently radiant as a child’s.

The flames soon died down, and when they did, a wonderful smell rose up from the turnips and carrots littering the ground.

“…A ladybug stopped by a moment ago. They’re helpful insects. I had to move it so it wouldn’t get caught in the fire…” Queneau picked up a scorched turnip and peeled back its skin a little, revealing the juicy flesh beneath. The raw thermal power had steamed it almost instantly. “………The vegetables are roasted. They’re fine to eat once you peel the skin… I know that my teammates have been causing you a lot of problems. Go ahead and share these with your friends…”

Queneau scooped the scattered vegetables into a basket and handed it to Erna. The turnips and carrots he’d carefully grown were far larger than the kind you could buy in stores, and their quality was fantastic. It was clear just from looking at them how delicious they’d be to bite into.

Lily looked at him agape. “Wait, is that why you’ve been out here for basically this entire month?”

“………Aye.”

“What an absurdly upstanding guy!” Erna yelped.

Queneau didn’t interact with Lamplight with any sort of regularity. Thinking back, he probably saw the world through a different lens than most. Much like Lamplight’s own Annette, he operated on principles that normal people couldn’t hope to understand. Hearing the sheer ecstasy and pleasure in his voice the moment that fire filled the sky was enough to get a glimpse of how dangerous he could be. Around Lamplight, though, he kept that danger hidden away and interacted with them as a model senior spy.

That was who “South Wind” Queneau was—an engineer who operated at the crossroads of instinct and reason.

As Erna put out the stove’s fire, a series of knocks echoed out: two loud knocks, then one quiet one, then another loud one. That was the code they’d settled on ahead of time so they could let the others know they’d gotten back safely without being tailed. Erna immediately opened the door and found Sybilla standing outside looking like exhaustion on two legs. “Big Sis Sybilla!”

Sybilla waved. “Hey, I’m back.” She’d gotten caught in the heavy rain, and her clothes were sopping wet and dripping on the floor.

“Good work today,” Erna said, handing Sybilla a towel.

“Thanks… Wait, huh?” After wiping her head dry, Sybilla gave Erna a puzzled look. “What’s up with the ice? Is there something wrong with your head?”

“I just hit it a little.” Erna readjusted the ice pack perched on her noggin. “I’ll be fine, though. More importantly, what about you?”

“Me? I’m aces. I just needed to let off some steam.”

“What do you mean?”

“A lot of shit’s gone down today. Hard-core, messed-up shit.”

Sybilla stripped out of her soaked clothes, then set them to dry by the fireplace and sat down in nothing but her skivvies. She quickly summed up what had happened—how she’d gotten captured by a team called Belias, how Belias suspected that Avian had made an attempt on Crown Prince Darryn’s life, how they’d gone around the city searching for Lan, how she’d danced the waltz at a place called Heron Manor, and how she’d heard about Prince Darryn’s sudden passing.

Erna’s eyes went wide. There had been a number of surprising bits of information in there, but none were more shocking than the final reveal. “Prince Darryn is dead…?”

“As a doornail. And everyone’s got a whole shit ton of questions. The whole thing doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

“That news is going to shock the world.”

“The problem is, Lan’s their main suspect,” Sybilla muttered with a brooding look on her face. “As her allies, that’s a whole ’nother can of worms we gotta deal with.”

She was absolutely right—there were a shit ton of questions that needed answering. Why did Avian get wiped out? Why was Belias so convinced that Avian was behind the failed assassination attempt on the crown prince? To that point, who was it that actually killed him? And to what end?

Sybilla scratched her head.

“It’ll take some work sorting through our information,” Erna said.

“True that,” Sybilla replied with a nod. “For starters, though, I need to get some food in me. I’m starvin’.”

“I just finished cooking. Where’s Teach?”

“He said he was gonna come over once he picked Thea up from Belias’s base. He should be here soon.”

“…You might not want to be in your underwear, then.”

“Yeah, true. There’s only so many times I can let the guy see my unmentionables in one day.”

“Only so many times? You mean he already saw them?”

“Gah! I-it’s just a turn of phrase! Forget I said that!”

“Yeep! Quit poking my cheeks!”

“Aight, I should probably go take a shower.”

“Good idea. You need to make sure you keep warm.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to catch a cold.”

“Oh yes, verily.”

A new voice joined in.

Sybilla turned and saw Lan, who’d just gotten out of the shower.

“Thou had best take thy shower posthaste, Dame Sybilla. ’Tis imperative one stays in good health.”

With that, “Cloud Drift” Lan—the very person Belias was so fervently searching for—gave her a big smile.