Sugar Apple Fairytale - Volume 4 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

SNOW

Someone banged violently on the front door of the main house.

“Mr. Paige! There’s trouble!”

The voice belonged to the boy from Millsfield who delivered milk to the workshop every morning.

At the sound of his urgent shouting, Anne, Mithril, and the other four candy crafters dashed out of the workroom.

When they looked toward the main house, they saw the boy yelling and pounding at the front door with a desperate expression. And limply hanging over his shoulders was Elliott.

“Mr. Collins!” Anne shouted.

The four candy crafters ran over to him, and Anne followed close behind.

“Hey, what happened?! Elliott!” King called out.

The boy noticed them and turned around.

That was when the door to the main house opened, and Challe appeared. He took one look at the boy and at Elliott, who looked like he might slide to the ground at any moment, and moved to support Elliott under one arm. Challe carefully lifted his body from the petrified boy’s shoulders.

Anne and the others arrived out of breath.

They got a clear look at Elliott’s condition as he dangled from Challe’s arms.

A thin trail of blood trickled down his forehead. A shallow wound in his side was oozing blood. He was unconscious.

“Too sharp,” Challe muttered with a frown, looking at Elliott’s wound.

Orlando was stunned for a moment, but he quickly started and shook the boy by the shoulders. “What happened? What is this?! Hey!” he demanded.

“I—I don’t know! I was trying to deliver the milk, and when I got here, there was a wagon parked at the bottom of the hill. Mr. Collins was lying beside it! He’s injured. What should we do? Should I go back to town and call a doctor?”

“Sorry. Yes, please do that.”

The boy ran off, and Orlando moved to support Elliott’s other shoulder.

Just then, they heard a shriek from the direction of the parlor. When they looked, they saw Bridget standing in the doorway. She was covering her mouth with both hands, and her eyes were wide.

“For now, we’ll carry Elliott to his room. Anne, please ask Danna to boil some water. Then get some clean cloth—anything will do—and bring it to Elliott’s room.”

Once Orlando gave her instructions, Anne’s brain finally started running normally again. She nodded and ran over to Bridget.

“Bridget. I don’t know where to find cloth. Will you help me?”

Bridget was trembling slightly, but she managed to nod.

Before long, the doctor arrived and tended to Elliott’s wounds.

Thankfully, his injuries weren’t serious and would heal within ten days.

Bridget worked with Anne to carry in the cloth and water that Danna had boiled for them, but she didn’t leave the room even after that. She stood motionlessly in the corner, looking worried.

Orlando and Anne couldn’t pull themselves away, either.

It was near noon when Elliott regained consciousness. He suddenly opened his eyes, looked in turn at Orlando and Anne—who were peering down at him—then at Bridget in the corner of the room, and muttered, “Ah…so I’m alive, then.”

“What happened, Elliott?” Orlando asked.

Elliott grimaced painfully. “I went out on a day trip to Lewiston yesterday,” he said, “but on the way home… It was evening, but the sun was still up. I was attacked.”

“Robbers?”

The road that led from Lewiston to Millsfield saw a lot of traffic and was known for being comparatively safe. Injuries from robbers or wild animals were largely unheard of.

“I don’t know what they were after. They attacked so suddenly. They came out onto the road, as if they had been waiting for a break between the farmhouses and for the foot traffic to thin out. They were wearing a hood, so I couldn’t see their face. They were a strange one. They said they could smell silver sugar on me and asked if I was a Silver Sugar Master. I told them no, but…”

Elliott laughed lightheartedly, then groaned in pain. Once the pain subsided, he took a deep breath and continued:

“Then they suddenly sliced me open. I drove the wagon onward in a daze, and I remember almost making it back to the workshop, but well, you know the rest. Anyway—”

Elliott stuck a hand out from under his blanket and waved at Bridget, who was still standing in the corner of the room.

“—come over here, Bridget. Were you worried about me? Want to nurse me back to health?”

Bridget had been watching over Elliott with apparent concern, but when he spoke to her, she turned away. Then she briskly left the room.

Challe had his arms crossed and was leaning against the wall in the hallway, glaring at the door to Elliott’s room.

The doctor had left, and the only people still in the room were Anne, Orlando, and Bridget. The rest of the candy crafters had returned to the workroom.

Around noon, Bridget came out of Elliott’s room. She then saw Challe in the hallway and jumped back, stopping in her tracks. He stared back at her blankly.

“Are you worried about Elliott?” Bridget asked, averting her gaze slightly.

“I saw his wounds. I could tell they were nothing serious. I just have something that I want to confirm with him.”

“In that case, you should go in. Elliott’s awake.”

Challe moved away from the wall and started walking when Bridget grasped his hand to stop him.

“Wait. Challe, won’t you come to my room again?”

“I have no obligation.”

“Even if you’re not obligated, if I ask you to, won’t you come?”

She looked up at him imploringly, and Challe sighed. There was a pathos in the fact that, like a child, she didn’t understand anything.

“Wise up,” he quietly said as he slowly pulled his hand away.

Bridget stared at him with a blank expression, like she didn’t understand what he meant.

Challe knocked on the door and stepped into Elliott’s room.

Anne looked at Challe as he came in and smiled. “Challe, were you worried?” she asked. “Mr. Collins is all right. In fact, he’s come around.”

“I wasn’t worried about him.”

“How cruel, Challe. You can’t say you were worried, even if it’s just lip service?” Elliott said in a pitiful voice from the bed.

“Not for you. More importantly, there’s something I want to ask.”

Challe stood over Elliott’s pillow.

“Those wounds. Did a fairy inflict them?”

“I don’t know whether it was a fairy or not. They were wearing a cloak with a hood, so I couldn’t see their face or even tell what clothes they had on.”

“Were you robbed?”

“I said this earlier, but I don’t know what they were after. But they told me that I smelled of silver sugar. Then they asked if I was a Silver Sugar Master, and when I lied and said I wasn’t, they attacked me.”

Anne anxiously tugged at the sleeve of Challe’s jacket.

“Hey, what’s going on? Do you know something?”

“His wounds weren’t inflicted by any blade made by humans.”

The wound on Elliott’s abdomen was shallow and perfectly horizontal. He had been carried into the main house by his shoulders. The cut in his skin was so precise, it couldn’t possibly have been inflicted by a human-made weapon. The only thing with that kind of edge was a blade conjured by a gemstone fairy.

Challe casually opened his right hand and focused his attention there. Then beads of light from his surroundings gathered in his palm. In the blink of an eye, they coalesced into a silvery sword.

Elliott’s and Orlando’s eyes went wide.

“He’s not a pet fairy?” Orlando asked, overcome with surprise.

“I thought there was something different about you—so you’re a warrior fairy, huh?” Elliott said with a strained smile. “Kind of scary to think I didn’t know.”

People were always getting the wrong idea about him, so Challe didn’t pay it any mind. He brought the blade in his hand closer to Elliott’s face.

“Were you slashed by a sword that sparkled like this one?”

Elliott stared at the blade thrust before him and nodded.

“The shine was similar,” he said. “But it wasn’t as silvery as this one. It was a reddish silver. Though actually, I couldn’t see it very well. I’m sure there was quite a bit of distance between me and my attacker, but I could hear something like a sword cutting through the wind, and I saw out of the corner of my eye some reddish-silver light.”

Challe withdrew his blade and waved his hand to make it disappear. “The one who cut him was a fairy. No doubt about it,” he asserted.

“So someone made a fairy attack Mr. Collins?” Anne frowned hard.

“Probably.”

Challe had a bad feeling.

The smell of silver sugar, huh?

The fairy’s question seemed extremely ominous.

“Well, whoever did this, and whatever their purpose, it’s over now. And I lived through it.”

Elliott closed one of his eyes.

“Since Bridget rejected me, I’ll ask Danna to be my nurse. I’ll be fine, so hurry up and get out of here, Orlando, Anne. This is hardly an occasion to idle your time away in a place like this, wouldn’t you say? There are only ten days left until the Selection. Make sure you don’t present an ugly sculpture that will disappoint Glen. Get to work.”

“Elliott was—?”

When Anne went to report Elliott’s injuries, Glen tried to get up out of bed.

She rushed to stop him.

“He’s fine. His injuries aren’t that serious, and it sounds like his wounds will heal in about ten days.”

Glen lowered his head back onto his pillow. Then he placed his right palm on his forehead and gently closed his eyes. His thin wrist attested to his weakness.

“If only my body wasn’t in such a state. Elliott is still young. I’m sure he’d like to have his hands in silver sugar. Yet I’ve been asking him to do nothing besides handle various duties in my place, so something like this—”

“The two things have nothing to do with each other. And anyway, if Mr. Collins is going to become maestro, then it’s only right that he should be acting as your proxy. Besides, he is undeniably aware of what it means to be a proxy.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I was just driven out of his room. Orlando and me. He told us to go because he’ll ask Danna to nurse him. He told us not to submit anything ugly at the Selection and to get to work.”

“That boy is growing into a fine man.”

Glen let out a chuckle. But then his face clouded over.

“If I could just entrust Bridget to Elliott, I would have nothing more to worry about. But it doesn’t seem to be going very well. Bridget is still a child. There’s nothing that can be done about that.”

Even as he said that, it was obvious that Glen loved Bridget the most. If he didn’t care about what happened to her, surely he wouldn’t be so worried. He would simply hurry up and adopt Elliott, like how the former maestro of the Mercury Workshop had adopted Hugh.

Glen’s expression was like an exact duplicate of one of Emma’s. It was the face of a parent.

“She’ll make something of herself, bit by bit. As long as she tries,” Anne said.

“What do you base that on?”

“Nothing.”

Anne shrugged. “But even if she’s capable, if she doesn’t start working toward something, nothing will change,” she continued.

Glen’s eyes went wide, and he laughed.

“I see. Well, as Elliott also said, please get back to work. Don’t embarrass me.”

Anne left Glen’s room and headed straight for the workroom. The crafters and Mithril seemed to have heard about Elliott’s condition from Orlando, and they appeared relieved.

“I assume you all heard about Mr. Collins’s injuries?” Anne asked.

King screwed his face up and looked annoyed. “So much fuss over nothing,” he said. “I should have expected that bastard Elliott would be as tough as he is headstrong. The doc said he’ll be better in ten days. Though, we might get some peace and quiet if he’d stay down a little longer!”

King was jokingly complaining about Elliott, even though he had been the most panicked when he saw that Elliott was injured. His face had been pale just earlier. King was tall and fierce-looking, but Anne suspected that he was actually the most sensitive and kindest of the five candy crafters.

“He’ll heal in time for the Selection. He can go to the Church of Saint Lewiston Bell as the proxy maestro. After all, both Mr. Collins and Glen told me not to submit something ugly and to not embarrass them.”

Anne walked over to the barrels of silver sugar that were lined up against the wall of the workroom and placed her hand on one of them.

“Let’s get crafting.”

Then she raised her head.

She looked at King, sitting in front of his workbench. Then at Nadir, who had planted himself in front of a millstone. Next, Anne’s eyes traveled to Valentine, who was standing quietly behind him. Finally, her gaze landed on Orlando, standing by the wall. She looked at Mithril, holding his broom on top of the stove.

Everything had been entrusted to Anne. It was time to issue instructions.

“Let’s start our preparations. King, carry two barrels of silver sugar over to the workbenches. Valentine and Nadir, draw cold water from the well. Orlando, gather all the tools we need for crafting. Mithril, set out every single vial of colored powder on top of the workbench closest to the door. Please.”

Everyone nodded.

“Once everything is in order, we’ll get to work.”

The moment she gave her instructions, the crafters started moving.

Clear, cold water was drawn up and carried in. A barrel of silver sugar was opened, and vials of colored powder were lined up in rows on a workbench.

Anne, the other four crafters, and Mithril gathered around one workbench.

“We’re going to make snow?” Orlando asked uneasily. “How do you plan to represent that? It’s so shapeless.”

Anne shook her head. “Snow has a shape.”

The image of snow that came to Anne’s mind was snow slowly drifting from the sky as she looked up at it.

Fluffy and weightless, it could cover the world in the blink of an eye, yet it simply melted away in her palm.

Just like sugar candy.

Though both seemed to lack power, the ability to invite even a little bit of good fortune could make a big difference over time.

During the previous winter, the winter that Anne had spent with Challe and Mithril at the Weather Vane, they had seen lots of snow. The large flakes that stuck to the windowpanes had formed magnificent crystals. They had perfect regular structures, with six sharp points branching off to form hexagons, while the centers were complex and lovely like lacework.

These crystals glistened in the sunshine and melted instantly in its warmth. Anne had thought how nice it would be if she could preserve the way the snowflakes sparkled in the light forever.

“Crystals.”

The other four crafters looked at one another.

Anne plunged a stone bowl into the barrel, scooped up some silver sugar, and spread it out on top of the workbench.

“Let’s determine what size and shape they’ll be. Everyone, try making what you envision as a snowflake. Then we’ll compare what we’ve all made and decide on the shape of our crystals.”

“And then what are we going to do?”

“We’ll figure that out after we give this a try,” Anne answered.

King heard that and burst out laughing.

“You’re pretty laid-back, huh, head crafter?!”

“I’m still learning!”

She was able to answer in a carefree manner with a smile. Orlando smiled a little, too. Without a word, he picked up a stone bowl and scooped some silver sugar out of the barrel.

Each of the crafters chilled their hands in the cold water. Then they added water to the silver sugar in front of them and began kneading the mixture. Their hands moved smoothly as they all huddled together. They put just the right amount of strength into kneading, and the silver sugar took shape and grew lustrous before their eyes.

Anne stretched her silver sugar dough out thin and cut it into pieces about the size of her palm. She took a spatula and formed each piece into an elegant shape with spokes extending out in six directions. Then she split the shapes again, using each spoke as a center point, forming a radiating geometric pattern.

Nadir was using a needle. As usual, his face was almost flat against the workbench as he made his tiny, delicate hexagons. The patterns inscribed into the center of his hexagons were so detailed, Anne had to strain her eyes just to barely make them out clearly. The patterns had a complex regularity to them.

Valentine’s snowflakes looked a lot like Anne’s—thin shapes with sharp spokes sticking out in six directions. The spokes coming off them were pointed, and the design was surprisingly well-balanced. There were geometric patterns carved uniformly into the shapes he’d created.

King’s shapes were composed of twelve thin decorative branches arranged in a radiating pattern and stuck together in the center. They were about the same size as Anne’s. But they were tinted ever so slightly pale blue and light pink. In the subtle, delicate hues, Anne sensed King’s superb intuition for color.

Orlando’s were a lot like Anne’s. They were similar in shape, but there wasn’t the slightest bit of ornate design applied to their surface. They were simply smooth, almost perfectly so. They were also quite large, about the size of a person’s face. At that size, considering how thin they were, they looked like they might break easily, but perhaps because of his clever method of kneading, Orlando’s snowflakes were sturdy and didn’t crack even when he held them up in his hands.

Their snowflakes were all different sizes, colors, and shapes, but they certainly were identifiable as snow crystals. There were probably some shapes that didn’t actually exist among snowflakes, but they captured the image that humans had of snow.

There were all sorts of different snowflakes being made one after another, and they quickly spread over the top of the workbench.

Soon, there were enough crystals to bury the workbench completely. There was a beauty in their accumulation.

They were lovely individually but had more impact as they accumulated. Their brilliance also increased. That particularly seemed like a property of snow.

Anne gazed at the workbench and made up her mind.

“Let’s make lots. We’ll unify the shape and pattern and make crystals of all sizes and colors. When we put them together, they’ll form some kind of structure.”

Nadir raised his head.

“A tower of snow, maybe?”

His words brought a flash of inspiration.

“That’s right. We’ll combine our snowflakes and put them together. We’ll make a tower of snow.”

Anne wondered how she should describe the image that had suddenly appeared in her mind to everyone so she could ask their opinions on it. She puzzled over it for a moment, but before she could even find the right words, Valentine spoke.

“If we pile them up unevenly, the interior will be structured like cobwebs, and light will get caught inside. It’ll show through to the other side, too. The sculpture will be ethereal.”

King nodded. “If light can get in, the colors will look vibrant,” he said. “We should add color to it here and there.”

Orlando added his thoughts. “We’ll need to be clever about our kneading. Thinking about the light, we’ll have to knead the dough more than usual to enhance their luster.”

The vague image that had risen in Anne’s mind was transformed piece by piece into precise words as it came out of the other crafters’ mouths.

These people. They are unmistakably candy crafters.

Anne felt a slight shudder.

With them here, I’m sure we’ll be able to make a sugar candy sculpture that’ll bring great joy.

Anne carefully examined how their crystals looked.

If they were factoring light in, complicated snowflake shapes would be best to reflect the most light. Anne listened to the opinions of the other four crafters and chose a shape with a hexagon at the center and spokes branching off it in six directions. Then she decided to engrave them with a regular pattern that was fine and delicate like lacework. They could form a lattice with that pattern and let the light shine through.

To reflect the light, the colors used white as the base and ranged from pale blue to faint pink to light purple. The crystals ranged from the size of a human’s face to the size of a palm. The crafters made as many as they possibly could.

They kneaded their silver sugar dough with more than twice as much persistence as usual. In doing so, they increased the intensity of the sugar’s luster and brilliance.

It was an enormous amount of work. Even just the kneading simply took twice as much time than normal sugar candy.

However, they had four crafters.

Orlando, whose kneading technique was excellent, kneaded the silver sugar. King was also strong, so he helped, too. And at the same time, he added color to the silver sugar.

Once King and Orlando were done kneading the dough, Anne and Valentine took it and stretched it thin. Then Valentine cut the thin dough into complex branching hexagons with miraculous accuracy. Anne engraved a radiating lacework pattern onto those shapes. Nadir used a needle to carve a uniform fretwork pattern on the tips of the six spokes. Light diffused wonderfully across the faces and tips of the shapes that were cut out in this way, making them even more brilliant.

Mithril moved around restlessly. He polished tools, straightened vials of colored powder, and scooped up silver sugar from the barrel. It didn’t seem like very important work, but his timing in bringing over tools and sugar was perfect, and thanks to his help, they were more efficient.

And so by midnight, they had managed to make just shy of one hundred snowflakes, large and small combined.

When it came to the works presented at the Selection, Anne had heard that some of them were even taller than her. If they intended to pile up the crystals, one or two hundred wouldn’t be enough.

“Ten days until the Selection, huh?”

Under the light of the lamp, Anne groaned and gently bit down on her thumb.

“We’ll need two days to stack up the snowflakes. We can get to Lewiston in one day. Which leaves seven days. Seven hundred snowflakes? I’d like to have twice that,” she grumbled.

“We could make two hundred a day,” Orlando said simply.

Anne’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Can we?”

“Glen won’t be happy with half measures. If we need twice as many, we will work twice as long.”

At his words, the other crafters all nodded, as though this was not a big deal.

From the next day on, the crafters lit the workroom lamps and handled silver sugar until the middle of the night. Then they got up at dawn and gathered in the workroom.

From early morning until late at night, Anne, Mithril, and the four other crafters kneaded and worked their silver sugar.

They took lunch and dinner in a small break room in the back of the workroom. Inside, there were only four chairs and a table for four. They brought in one more small stool, and the five humans and one fairy ate their meals in a huddle.

“It’s cramped.”

At first, Orlando had complained. But Anne liked the tiny narrow room more than the spacious dining room. For some reason, it was fun eating meals packed in there like sardines.

“Sometimes, smaller is better,” Anne said.

After she did that, Orlando didn’t complain anymore. He started eating silently, but the expression on his face didn’t look displeased.

But King’s face would turn bright red whenever Anne sat beside him, and he wouldn’t be able to eat his meal. So Anne took care not to be his neighbor. Clearly, older men sometimes felt confused on how to act around younger women, in ways that were hard to talk about.

Then on the seventh day—

Elliott’s injuries had been healing day by day. But they still didn’t know the identity or the objectives of the fairy who had attacked him. Ever since the incident, attacks on candy crafters by an unknown number of assailants had been taking place on the road connecting Lewiston and Millsfield.

Bridget remained holed up in her room with no change. The sugar candies that Anne and Orlando had left in front of her door were still there.

When they returned to the room exhausted each day, Mithril and Anne both slept like logs. But unlike when they had been staying at the main studio of the Radcliffe Workshop, this sleep was pleasant.

Challe watched Anne silently from the sidelines, as he always did.

Over time, the snowflakes came to number over one thousand and four hundred. They varied in size. Eighty percent of them were silvery white; the remaining twenty percent were light blue, pink, or purple.

From the ninth day on, Anne worked at assembling it.

The skilled candy crafters were able to make crystals that were extremely thin. To the point that if she were to apply more than the necessary amount of force they could easily break, Anne handled the crystals slowly and gently, as if she was touching a newborn baby bird.

She arranged them into a three-dimensional structure, taking size, color, and direction into account, without breaking any of the ever so thin snowflakes with their complex and dainty designs.

The other four crafters observed from four directions, checking the balance and color distribution. They also decided where she should place the next crystal and what size it should be.

Once a crystal was stuck on, it was difficult to remove it again. There were no do-overs.

One by one, paying meticulous attention, they decided on the size and color of the crystal going in the next spot and adjusted its angle before attaching it on. It required enormous powers of concentration.

All five of them were constantly staring at the snowflakes, holding their breath.

“What do you think?”

On top of a stepladder, Anne stretched her arm as far as it would go and placed the final crystal. Then she got down from the ladder and turned her gaze on the other four crafters.

It was the night of the tenth day.

Lamps were lit in the four corners of the workroom, and a further five lamps surrounded the sugar candy sculpture.

The crafters looked up at the sculpture standing before their eyes, and each of them nodded.

“No complaints.”

After Orlando’s comment, King spoke.

“It’s all right.”

Valentine smiled with a tired expression.

“We can’t do anything more than this.”

Nadir simply looked up at their candy sculpture, spellbound.

Just then, the door to the workroom opened.

“Anne! I brought him!”

Mithril bounded through the door, sounding excited. Anne and the others, sensing their sugar candy sculpture was nearing completion, had asked Mithril to go and summon Elliott from the main house.

Elliott followed Mithril in.

“Hey. I heard you finished your candy sculpture.”

The wound on Elliott’s head completely healed, and it seemed like the gash in his abdomen hardly hurt anymore.

He had restarted talks with the heads of the guild several days earlier. He had been boasting that he’d completely recovered from his injuries, but he was still being a little protective of his belly, perhaps because the wound ached with the cold at night.

As soon as Elliott saw their sculpture, he stopped in his tracks.

“Whoa. This is…”

He stared intently at the candy sculpture.

Then someone else appeared at the door of the workroom. It was Glen, being supported by Challe.

The four candy crafters were startled and rushed over to Glen in a panic.

“Glen! You mustn’t be out of your room on such a cold night!”

Valentine frowned, but Glen smiled.

“Do you think I can stay in bed when the sugar candy sculpture is finished? I—”

Orlando and King took over supporting Glen’s body from Challe. They helped Glen stand beside Elliott.

Glen looked at the sugar candy sculpture.

The piece was taller than Anne. It formed a tapering cone, like a fir tree.

Large and small crystals were stuck together in a complex pattern, layered over one another at all angles, standing tall and dignified like a tower.

Though it was unusually large for a sugar candy sculpture, it didn’t feel oppressive. That was because of the way the crystals were put together. They were arranged so that it was possible to see right through the interior of the tower to the other side.

Light shining on the outside of the tower penetrated through to the inside, and diffusion through the crystals made it even brighter.

The slightly tinted crystals placed here and there provided gentle accents. And the pointed tips of the crystals scattered the light in every direction. The patterns inscribed onto them made them break up the light more strongly than other parts, which made them twinkle.

“What do you think?”

Elliott slowly looked in Glen’s direction.

“It’s a winter wonderland.”

Glen’s eyes narrowed, as if he was yearning for something from his past.

“Actual snow isn’t as beautiful as this. But if we’re talking about the snow in my memories, it sparkles just like this.”

Glen looked at Orlando, King, Nadir, and Valentine in turn.

Then he smiled happily.

“I want to see this displayed at the Church of Saint Lewiston Bell.”

At those words, Elliott and the other four candy crafters smiled with relief.

Anne was watching them from a short distance away. They all adored Glen, and Glen believed in them. Sure enough, she could see the aura of confidence that surrounded them.

Anne was jealous. The image of Glen overlapped with her image of Emma.

I’m a guest here after all.

Watching them warmed her heart. But she also felt a little lonely.

Suddenly, Anne sensed a presence beside her. It was Challe.

He was staring at the sugar candy sculpture.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I wonder if it will be chosen? And if it’s enough to get your freedom back?” Anne said.

Challe answered her with his eyes still on the candy. “I don’t know. But it’s very clear that you put all your effort into this. That’s enough.”

Anne felt the light sensation of someone hopping up onto her shoulder. It was Mithril, who had his hand on his hip, looking cocky.

“Now, look what we can make when the great Mithril Lid Pod helps Anne with her work!”

“Thank you, Mithril Lid Pod. We only had a few crafters, so you really were a big help.”

When she thanked him again, Mithril scratched his head bashfully and turned bright red.

I may be a guest, but that’s okay.

She knew she could trust Challe and Mithril. They were her new family, ever since Emma had passed away.

“Anne?”

Suddenly, Glen called out to her.

“Why are you standing over there? You’re our head crafter.”

Anne looked at him blankly. Glen saw her expression and forced a smile. He must have remembered that Anne had gotten angry at his words.

Our head crafter? So I’m not a guest?

Elliott, Orlando, King, Valentine, Nadir. One by one, they looked toward Anne as if they were waiting for her.

She looked up at Challe, as if to ask what she ought to do. When she did, he gave her a silent push on the back.

When she hesitantly moved to stand beside Glen, he said quietly, “Our head crafter did a great job, huh?”

His words had an affectionate ring to them.

“Anne. Take this sugar candy sculpture and go to Lewiston,” Glen continued. “Go with my proxy, Elliott. You, the head candy crafter at the main studio of the Paige Workshop, will be the one to present it. This sculpture will be difficult to transport. It’s probably going to require all hands on deck to carry it. Absolutely do not break it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Anne nodded, and Glen turned his gaze on Challe, who was standing a little ways off.

“And you, Challe. Go with them, too. I’ve heard candy crafters have been attacked on the highway recently. So I want you to guard them. Do your job as a warrior fairy. Protect the crafters of the Paige Workshop. Can you do that?”

Challe smiled slightly.

“I will follow your orders.”