Sugar Apple Fairytale - Volume 5 - Chapter 7.2

“There is no doubting his skill. He was so good that he always won at the official tournament held at the Church of Saint Lewiston Bell. His record still stands.”

“But Master Herbert was so bad at fyffe that no one else would play with him. He told me I was the only one who would.”

“I’m sure it’s true that no one wanted to play against him. Who would want to challenge the kingdom’s greatest player to a match?”

“Ah…”

Understanding seemed to dawn on him, and Noah opened his eyes wide in astonishment.

“You didn’t know, did you?” said Hugh. “I bet you were the first one to suggest a game.”

Noah nodded slightly. “But why did Master Herbert say he was bad at fyffe?” he asked. “Why would he tell such a lie?”

“Lord Herbert was probably delighted to be invited to play for fun rather than for competition. I think he probably decided to give himself some sort of handicap so that he could enjoy the game with you.”

Noah’s purple eyes began to fill with tears.

“He simply enjoyed playing with you,” said Hugh.

“You think so? Really?”

“Didn’t he seem like he was having fun?”

Noah nodded, and Hugh asked another question.

“Were you having fun?”

“I…”

Noah started to mumble something as he looked over the rows of fyffe pieces, one by one. He bit his lip, and tears began to spill from the corners of his eyes.

“I also…had fun… It was fun…” His lips trembled. “Such fun…”

“Those playing pieces are yours. You can do as you wish with them. You can even pick them up, like you used to.”

Hugh’s words made Anne realize something.

I see. He chose something that Noah would pick up.

He had set a fondly remembered item from Noah’s memories in front of him, knowing that if the fairy picked up a game piece like he used to, the action would likely encourage him to eat.

Hugh had probably started off by thinking about what he could get Noah to take into his hand. A fairy picking up a piece of sugar candy was the equivalent of a human bringing that candy to their lips. If Noah did that, he would probably be drawn by the smell and the sweetness to eat it.

This is the true power of the Silver Sugar Viscount.

Given the quality of the craftsmanship—how detailed and elaborate the pieces were—it was also amazing that he had made every one of them in a single night.

But the most shocking thing of all was that he had ascertained that Herbert was a master fyffe player and that Noah had played the role of his opponent. What’s more, he had reproduced something that had gone missing fifteen years earlier, down to the very last detail.

“…It was fun.”

Noah stared hard at the game pieces and mumbled the same words again. His voice trembled. He grasped the front of his shirt tightly, as though waves of heartache were lashing at his chest.

Hugh watched Noah with a nearly expressionless face. Then after a few moments, he spoke.

“Noah. There’s still one more present remaining.”

Hugh signaled to Anne with his eyes, and she set the stone slab she had brought down on top of the bed.

I was a fool to think I could ever win.

The gap between their abilities was too wide. She didn’t even feel bitter about it. She only regretted that she had lost any chance of getting help from Kat. That alone pained her. She had no idea how the Paige Workshop was going to escape its current situation.

After having Hugh’s creation flaunted in front of her, she felt ashamed of the crests that she had brought, which were simple, ordinary things that anyone could have made.

Even if she couldn’t win the contest, her saving grace was that the crests might bring Noah just a little bit of joy.

“These are yours, Noah. I made them for you,” she said, removing the cloth.

When he caught sight of the crests, for some reason, Hugh’s gaze turned downcast. Noah’s eyes, meanwhile, lit up the moment he saw them.

“Crests?!”

Noah crawled toward the pile of crests and looked down at them.

There wasn’t the slightest bit of Anne’s creativity in the crests. She had simply and faithfully recreated the crest of the Chamber family. All she had done was make the blue of mercy deeper, the shining silver and white of the swords and shield representing strength more powerful and stately, and the purple lion stronger and gentler. To do this, she had given luster to each element and patiently mixed the colors.

She hoped that the heart of the black-haired man she had seen in her visions dwelled there in the crests.

“Why?” asked Noah.

With tears still in his eyes, he smiled faintly. Then Noah picked up one of the crests, almost in spite of himself. He stared at it like he had found a treasure.

“It’s the crest. Master Herbert’s crest!” Noah cried. He sounded overjoyed. “It’s so beautiful!” he said, looking up at Anne’s face.

“It’s beautiful?” she repeated.

“Yes, beautiful. A beautiful crest!”

“I’m glad.”

Noah turned his gaze back to the crest lying in the palm of his hand. His face, lit up with happiness, finally looked lively again.

I hope my idea makes it through to him, even just a little bit—the idea that Lord Herbert’s soul resides in that crest.

Anne looked at the sugar candy wrapped up in Noah’s frail hands and sighed with relief. Simply being enveloped in those hands made the ordinary piece of candy seem like an incredibly precious object, a true glistening gem. Anne was happy.

Just then, a soft light glimmered between Noah’s fingers where they were holding the crest.

Noah was gazing at it intently, a faint smile on his lips. As he did, the crest dissolved into light and seemed to sink into the fairy’s hands. His pale cheeks were tinged faintly red.

“…Ah…”

Without meaning to, a small sound slipped from Anne’s mouth. Challe was watching, too, and was clearly surprised. Hugh, for his part, burst out laughing. It was a self-deprecating kind of laugh.

The crest in Noah’s hand dissolved completely and disappeared. After letting out a long, relieved sigh, Noah stared down at his own empty hands.

“…I ate it.” He looked stupefied, as if he couldn’t believe it. “I…I ate it.”

Perhaps amazed that he had disobeyed his orders or stunned by the shock of doing so, Noah gazed down at where the crest had been. He looked on the verge of tears.

Hugh moved quickly. He picked up another candy crest and placed it in Noah’s hands.

The fairy looked up at him. “Silver Sugar Viscount?”

“You can eat as many as you like. Lord Herbert won’t be angry. I’m sure you’ve known that for a long time, haven’t you?”

Then Hugh turned his gaze on Anne.

“This Silver Sugar Master will make you as many of these as you want,” he said. “Isn’t that right, Anne?”

Anne nodded firmly. “Yes.”

If someone wished for something as strongly as Noah did, she would make it anytime, regardless of what it was. That was what being a candy crafter meant. Even if its image was banned, she didn’t care. Rules like that were just someone else’s selfishness.

“As long as someone needs it, I’ll make it, no matter what anyone else says.”

When he heard her answer, Noah’s face scrunched up with emotion. He looked happy, but at the same time, unbearable sorrow burst through like a dam, and tears spilled from his purple eyes.

“As long as you hold it in your heart, this crest will never truly vanish,” Hugh told him quietly.

“Master Herbert.” Noah cast his eyes down and stared intently at the crest. “Just as I thought, you were here.” Noah wrung the words from his throat. “You were in here all along. Playing fyffe with me, eating sugar candy, smiling. I knew it—you were here, right here, Master Herbert.”

The master he had been waiting for was never coming back, and all evidence that he had ever existed had been completely destroyed. Anne was sure that after fifteen years, even Noah’s pleasant memories had started to seem like phantoms.

But now Noah had the crest in his hand—proof that his kind master had once lived there.

For the first time in fifteen years, his memories of his master were not phantoms. That was what the crest was telling him.

“I had fun. I…really did.”

Quite a few tears fell from Noah’s downcast eyes into his lap. But his lips were still curved up in a smile.

“I had fun, Master Herbert,” the fairy whispered. It sounded like he was talking to someone with whom he had finally been reunited with after a very long time.

Leaving Noah in Challe’s care, Hugh pushed Anne out of the room. Once they reached the window in the corridor, he stuck both elbows out behind him and set them on the windowsill. Leaning back against the glass, he said, “It’s your victory, Anne.”

She was stunned by the unbelievable outcome. Anyone could tell that Hugh’s candies were more magnificent. Anne knew it, too. Even Noah must have been able to tell. But Noah, seemingly without meaning to, had eaten the crest-shaped sugar candy.

“Why…? Why did Noah pick up the crest?” Anne couldn’t help but wonder. She had absolutely no clue why she had won.

Hugh looked casually up at the ceiling and smiled wryly.

“Because it was proof that his dead master once lived, that he was once in this world. To someone like Noah, who adapted himself to the customs and thinking of the aristocracy, the meaning of a crest is perfectly clear. It signifies the spirit of those born into that noble house. It’s only natural that he would see Herbert’s heart in that crest.”

“But Noah hasn’t really accepted that Lord Herbert is dead.”

“Only if you take his words at face value. But think about it. No matter how thickheaded someone is, they must understand that a man who lost a war and didn’t return for fifteen years is dead. He simply didn’t want to accept it. Even knowing that his master was dead, he kept on waiting.”

“That’s awful…”

“Not only had Noah set himself a futile task in waiting for his dead master, but he was also facing an even more difficult reality. The castle was wrecked, the crests were burned, the portraits were slashed, and every trace that Herbert ever existed was seemingly wiped from this world. That must have been the most painful thing. Among all that destruction, he held out hope that the crest, proof that his master once lived, would be resurrected.”

Noah had stubbornly refused to eat the whole time they’d known him. It was both an attempt to obey Herbert’s orders and, at the same time, the result of losing the hope necessary to go on.

With only despair, emptiness, and his memories, Noah couldn’t muster the energy to continue. But as long as he had even just a little bit of hope, he could find the will to live on. Resurrecting proof that someone important to him had once lived, proof that Noah himself had thought was destroyed, seemed to have given him that hope.

“You did well to realize it,” said Hugh. “Why did you think of making the crest?”

“Because it was hidden on the back of the portrait that Noah was always staring at.”

“That crest has been banned. Didn’t you consider that it might be bad for a Silver Sugar Master to make it?”

“Just for a second, I did.” Anne bit her lip. “But I think being a Silver Sugar Master is meaningless if I can’t make the things I want to make. Are you going to report me to His Majesty and the Earl of Downing and see that I’m punished?”

“Of course not. I’m not that much of a bureaucrat. So you made the crest even knowing that it was banned, huh? Very interesting. That means you weren’t afraid. That’s why you won.”

When he finished speaking, Hugh turned his gaze out the window. The morning sun was illuminating the courtyard. A pale moon hung in the western sky. Something about Hugh’s face looked melancholy.

“But if you gave it that much thought,” said Anne, “if you understood everything, then why didn’t you make the crest, Hugh? I can’t imagine you threw the match. If you were going to do something like that, you would have given me your rights to Kat from the very beginning.”

Hugh looked back at Anne. “I didn’t mean to let you win. At first, I also made a crest.”

“Huh?”

“I made a crest, but then I smashed it. In its place, I chose something that had a high chance of winning. If you hadn’t made the crest, I would have been victorious.”

When she heard this, Anne remembered something. The previous afternoon, when she took up the tea, she had overheard Salim and Hugh talking inside his room. “Now, Viscount?” Salim had asked, sounding puzzled.

He must have been asking Hugh if he was going to start over.

“Why did you destroy it? If you knew all that and had already made it?”

“I am the Silver Sugar Viscount. I serve His Majesty the King and make sugar candy only for him. For a man like me to make a crest that His Majesty…that the Millsland royal family has banned would be unthinkable. In fact, it’s something that even an ordinary Silver Sugar Master ought to consider very carefully.”

“But the idea that you can’t make something—”

“You’re right. As long as you’re prepared to face the consequences, you can make anything you want. For an ordinary Silver Sugar Master, you can expect a reprimand or, at worst, house arrest. But it’s different for me. I am a servant of the king. The best I could expect is imprisonment. At worst, execution. The Silver Sugar Viscount absolutely cannot betray His Majesty. So I couldn’t make that crest.”

Hugh’s tone was detached. He was smiling, but in his eyes, Anne detected a faint shade of misery.

“The rest of you have such freedom,” he said.

“Why did you take a post like Silver Sugar Viscount, Hugh?” Anne asked, unable to stop herself.

She had truly never considered the fact that the Silver Sugar Viscount couldn’t make sugar candy for anyone other than the king before. For a candy artisan, it would be like having one’s wings clipped. It meant being bound and restrained.

Even if someone was nominated to be the Silver Sugar Viscount, it ought to be possible to decline. No one would be happy to be so constrained unless they were after political power.

“Kat asked me the same thing. ‘Why didja hafta accept somethin’ like that?!’ he said. He was mad. He was just as mad when I took the Mercury surname and when I became maestro of the faction. But I ignored him and ultimately ended up as the Silver Sugar Viscount. Kat really hates it when candy crafters have their freedom taken from them. I don’t think he’s ever been able to forgive me, his favorite rival, for making such a decision. He asked me if I was really so hungry for power.”

“Were you?”

Anne didn’t understand, either. As an artist, having her creative freedom taken away was the most painful thing she could imagine.

“Yeah. I was.” Hugh’s eyes narrowed. “If you don’t have any power, some things are simply out of reach. That’s why I wanted it. When I was a kid, I was helpless, and because of that, I allowed my little sister to die. Back then, I made a vow. I swore that one day, I’d have the power I lacked. The religious power of sugar candy wasn’t enough. I wanted something more direct.”

Hugh stood up straight and gently patted Anne on the head.

“This time, it’s genuinely your win,” he said. “You weren’t afraid, and that’s why you won. I yield my right to control Kat to you. There’s no time for dillydallying. Go get him right away.”

Hugh quickly turned around and walked off.

“Let’s go, Salim,” he said.

Salim, who had been waiting at the end of the hallway, followed him like a shadow. There was no hesitation or regret in Hugh’s stride. He was walking straight down the path he had chosen for himself.

Anne stared at his back and balled her hands into fists.

I lost.

If only Hugh had not been the Silver Sugar Viscount, he would have made the banned crest. And Hugh, who clearly understood the meaning it held for Noah, probably would have presented it to him in a totally different way, even though it would have been the same crest.

It would have been exactly the same, and yet Noah would have chosen the crest that Hugh made.

I can’t possibly say that I won.

In the end, Anne was no match for the Silver Sugar Viscount. Someday, she wanted to become a Silver Sugar Master like Hugh. But she didn’t want to have her wings clipped like he had.

She stood there awhile, motionless.

After a time, the door to Anne’s room opened, and Challe came out and stood next to her. Anne was still staring down the hall with an intense expression.

“Noah fell asleep,” said Challe. “The sugar candy seems to have greatly improved his condition. He won’t die on us.”

“I see… That’s great.”

“So you won.”

Anne shook her head hard. She bit her lip, but tears welled up in her eyes, unbidden.

“I lost, Challe.”

She felt bitter. Not because she hadn’t truly won, but because the finest sugar candy crafter in the Kingdom of Highland had lost his freedom. And she had been victorious because of it.

She wiped away the tears that threatened to spill down her face with her fist.

“Anne!”

Suddenly, she heard a flutter of footsteps. Nadir came running from the direction of the lesser hall.

“I just overheard Elliott and the Silver Sugar Viscount talking! Anne, you won?!” Nadir grabbed hold of both of Anne’s hands and pumped them up and down.

“I didn’t win,” Anne replied. “But I got him to cede me his rights to Kat.”

“What? I don’t really get it, but whatever. That means Kat is coming to help!”

“Yeah.” Anne nodded, and Nadir leaped into the air.

“Whoo-hoo! We’re going to finish in time for the festival!”

“Indeed, we are,” came a voice from the end of the hall.

Elliott strolled leisurely toward them. “The Silver Sugar Viscount has gone. I heard a summary of your competition. You seem dissatisfied, Anne, but a win is a win.”

“I’ll go tell everyone!” Nadir cried as he nimbly dashed away.

Elliott watched him go, then smiled at Anne. “I understand perfectly why you’re so unhappy. That’s why you’ve got to keep improving more and more.”

Anne was startled by his words. What if she had won by surpassing Hugh’s abilities instead? She had a feeling Hugh would have flashed her a casual, happy smile. She wouldn’t have caused that melancholy look in his eyes.

“One day, you can truly defeat the Silver Sugar Viscount and settle the score, okay? But for now, you’ve won. We’re saved. Everyone’s thrilled. So let me tell you in Glen’s place… You did well, Anne.”

When he had finished, Elliott ruffled Anne’s hair, like one might do to a child.

“Okay.” She managed to nod obediently, perhaps because Elliott’s words had made her happy.

More and more, I’ll keep improving.

Then one day, she hoped, she would become a Silver Sugar Master capable of facing Hugh head-on.

One day, for sure.

Determination filled her heart.

After that, Anne immediately wrote a letter to Kat.

She told him that she had gotten Hugh to give her the right to ask Kat a favor, so as promised, she wanted him to hurry to Hollyleaf Castle in Lewiston.

She handed the letter to a courier—an acquaintance of Elliott’s. She paid him extra, and he assured her he would deliver it to Southcent immediately. If he did, then Kat could arrive at Hollyleaf Castle as early as the next day.

Elliott ordered Anne, who had stayed up all night completing her job, to rest that whole day. With a stern look, he warned her that they would be in trouble if she joined in while sleep-deprived and bungled something up.

Anne thought that was reasonable, so she agreed. But before she went to rest, she wanted to check on Noah one more time. She peeked stealthily into her room and saw Noah sitting on top of the bed. He was staring absently at the sugar candy crests sitting on the side table.

“Noah?”

When she called his name, Noah looked at her with a start and flushed bright red. Then he energetically dived under the blanket.

“I wasn’t looking at the candy or anything!”

Anne smiled in spite of herself at Noah’s excuses. She was happy to see him so lively.

“No, of course you weren’t,” she said.

When Anne crouched by the bed, she noticed something different about the side table. The game board and candy fyffe pieces, which had been set up there, had disappeared. Only the candy crests that Anne had made remained.

“Huh? What happened to the candy that the Silver Sugar Viscount made for you?” she asked.

“When I woke up, only the candy crests were left.” Noah timidly stuck his head back out from under the covers. He looked like he might cry at any moment. “Maybe the Silver Sugar Viscount took it back with him. I don’t suppose I can ask him for it…? I promise to treasure it forever. So I’d like to ask him…to please let me have it.”

“I don’t expect the Viscount took it back with him, so don’t worry. You should be able to have it. He made it for you, after all. But how strange… I wonder if someone took it away without asking?”

While she was pondering this mystery, Noah cautiously spoke up.

“Um…uhhh. So Thief…is not your name, but…”

“What? Oh right. I’m Anne.”

“Anne?”

“Yes?”

“The sugar candy…,” Noah said softly. “When it’s gone, will you really make me more?”

“I will. I’ll make as much as you ask for, Noah.”

“And there’s something else I want to ask you, Anne. Those two fairies—you gave them back their wings?”

“That’s right.”

“Why did you do that? Is it because the two of them weren’t useful to you?”

He sounded anxious. Anne chuckled a little, because she knew perfectly well what Noah was worried about. She knew he had truly loved his master and couldn’t help wanting to be of use to him.

“Master Herbert was kind, but he was a liar. He told me he was bad at fyffe, but the Silver Sugar Viscount said he was actually really good at it. So he might have told me other lies, too. When he said that I was useful to him, that was probably a lie. I bet he left me behind in the castle because I wasn’t of any use.”

“You’ve got it wrong, Noah. I returned their wings because it’s wrong to own my friends. We live together, as equals, and I think they’re just the same as me, so I gave their wings back. I’m sure that Lord Herbert also treasured you as his friend, Noah. I think that’s why he returned your wing. To Lord Herbert, you were a dear, dear friend. Don’t you agree?”

When she said that, Noah slowly turned to face her.

“A dear friend?”

“I’m sure of it. Whether you were useful or not had nothing to do with it—he simply liked you.”

When she gave him this answer, Noah smiled softly. It was a wonderful smile, like a blooming flower.

Anne tucked the covers around him, then squeezed Noah’s hand.

“Now, get a little sleep. Then you’ll feel even better.”

“Okay.”

Noah obediently closed his eyes. His cheeks had taken on a little more color, and seeing them reassured Anne. She breathed a sigh of relief and suddenly felt very sleepy.

As her eyelids fell, she heard the sound of someone breathing nearby. Somewhere in her conscious mind, as she was about to be dragged down into slumber, she understood that Herbert was somehow there.

She was no longer the slightest bit afraid. She simply wondered curiously why Herbert did not appear to Noah.

As she pondered this, she heard a voice.

“If I went to see the boy, I know what he would say. He would tell me to take him to the next world with me.”

Herbert was right. Noah would most likely cling to Herbert’s shadow and tearfully demand to go with him.

“I thank you, young Silver Sugar Master.” Quietly, gently, the voice told her, “Now I, too, can finally leave the castle with peace of mind. This time, for good.”

Then the voice vanished. The breathing and the presence disappeared as well.

Anne knew that Herbert had gone.

It was said that human souls ascended to heaven on the Pure Soul Day of the year they died. But Herbert’s soul had spent fifteen long years stuck in this castle. He must have refused to ascend to heaven out of concern for his loyal fairy.

And now, at long last, he was able to leave. With his soul departing the castle, she wondered whether it would wander around the earth for all eternity, drifting like the breeze, traveling aimlessly throughout the kingdom. Or whether, when the next Pure Soul Day came around, it might be permitted once more to ascend to heaven.

I’ll make a piece of sugar candy for Lord Herbert on the next Pure Soul Day.

She knew that there probably hadn’t been anyone to arrange the candy for Herbert’s death fifteen years earlier. In that case, Anne would prepare it this year. She had a feeling that, though it had taken fifteen years, the doors of heaven would open to him with the blessing of sugar candy.

But before that, I’ve got to somehow finish the candy sculptures for the First Holy Festival.

In her thoughts, scattered by drowsiness, Anne saw the faces of Elliott and the other candy crafters of the Paige Workshop. She recalled Glen’s face, too. And last of all, Kat’s.

It’s okay. Kat is coming to help.

They had finished enough of the snowflake-shaped sugar candies in various sizes to assemble them into a sculpture of the same sort as the one they had presented back at the Selection. But because their silver sugar had solidified, the work of assembling it was still on hold. They hadn’t completed even a single snow tower.

We’ll make it. I know we will…

Anne drifted off to sleep, as if buoyed on gentle waves.

That morning, Nadir was talking loudly about the fact that Anne had won her contest against the Silver Sugar Viscount. When Bridget heard him, relief washed over her.

If Kat joined them in their work, they were likely to finish their sculptures in time.

Now reassured, Bridget was in a bit of a good mood. She felt like having tea but hated the idea of drinking it alone, so she decided to have Gladys join her and headed for his room.

But Gladys was always off wandering around the castle. Even when Bridget wanted to see him, she was often unable to locate him right away. When she walked around the castle searching for him, she almost always found him somewhere near the east wing. It was clear to her that he was interested in the sugar candy.

She felt sure he would once again be off somewhere else, so she opened the door without knocking and peeked inside.

Unexpectedly, Gladys was there.

He was standing near the window, smiling. The window beside him had a wide sill, and on it was a magnificent fyffe board and all its pieces.

There were no such fyffe pieces at the Paige Workshop. And such beautiful pieces as those had no business being in a castle that was all but ruined. There was no doubt they were the sugar candy fyffe pieces that the Silver Sugar Viscount had made.

Why does Gladys have them?

Gladys had picked up one of the king pieces and was staring at it. Before long, the game piece was surrounded by a faint golden light, and its shape began to disintegrate. In the blink of an eye, it dissolved and was absorbed into Gladys’s palm.

“What on Earth are you doing?!” Without meaning to, Bridget raised her voice.

Gladys seemed startled and turned to look at her. Then before Bridget could open her mouth again, he came up to her with shocking speed and seized her by the shoulders.

“Be quiet, Bridget,” he whispered sweetly.

He pulled her forcefully into the room and closed the door, then dragged her over to the window.

“Gladys! You can’t steal sugar candy! It’s unforgivable!”

“Is it?”

Gripping both of Bridget’s wrists with one hand, Gladys used his other, free hand to gently caress one of the queen pieces. It sparkled faintly and dissolved, absorbed into his palm.

“What are you doing?! Stop it—stop it right now!”

Bridget struggled, but Gladys was much too strong. He was unyielding.

“Its power fills me,” Gladys mumbled to himself.

He sounded ecstatic. He didn’t even seem to notice Bridget struggling against him. His hand passed over the game pieces one by one, dissolving and absorbing them.

“Just what I would expect from the Silver Sugar Viscount. Magnificent. I was losing patience with the Paige Workshop’s sculptures taking so long, so it’s a stroke of good fortune that this fell into my hands. It was worthwhile, coming here.”

“Gladys! Don’t tell me you were only after sugar candy?”

Bridget had considered that it might be too good to be true. That she should have been suspicious about why such a beautiful fairy had just happened to appear before her. Why the fairy dealer had given him to her for so little. Why Gladys had treated her sweetly and kindly, just as she had wished.

“I was wounded, Bridget. I needed sugar candy in order to recover my strength. I suppose I was wrong for using you. But unfortunately, I don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt.”

He thrust her aside, and Bridget fell on her rear on the floor.

“It’s unforgivable!” she shouted. “Stop it now!”

Oddly enough, she felt no pain at Gladys’s betrayal. She had always known that he had no affection for or interest in her.

Bridget had simply used the fact that she possessed his wing to seek comfort from him.

Even she found her own foolishness tedious. So when Gladys defied her, she felt no pain.

But she couldn’t allow the beautiful sugar candy pieces before her eyes, the ones made by the Silver Sugar Viscount, to be so casually dissolved into nothing. Sugar candy was a sacred food. It was something precious.

The only one allowed to destroy or consume these pieces of candy was the childlike fairy for whom they had been made. That was the point of sugar candy. It existed for the happiness of the one to whom it was given.

Bridget was the daughter of a sugar candy faction’s maestro. No matter how twisted up her feelings might have become, her reverence for sugar candy was the one thing that remained unchanged.

She pulled out the small pouch she kept tucked in her breast pocket and removed the wing inside.

Gladys smiled faintly. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I think you know!”

With determination, Bridget squeezed the wing tight.

However, Gladys’s smile remained unchanged.

“Huh…?” For a moment, Bridget’s mind went blank. Why wasn’t he suffering?

“Poor thing. Somewhere, the owner of that wing is in a lot of pain.”

At Gladys’s words, Bridget felt a stab of fear. She tossed the wing aside and scooted away, trying to escape. But Gladys knelt right in front of her and peered into her face.

“You’re interrupting my meal.”

Challe felt slightly relieved.

The life of the little fairy who had been waiting fifteen years for the human he adored had been saved.

Wanting to wait one hundred, two hundred years, or more, even knowing that the other person had died—that was something Challe understood very well. That was why he wanted that fairy to live. If Noah wanted to wait, he could wait forever. He could pass his time waiting, or he could decide to set off anew. Fate would surely lead him one way or the other.

Challe stepped out into the courtyard and felt the cold autumn air on his skin. Bright rays of sunlight shone down on the neglected garden.

In the distance, he could see the candy crafters moving around in their workshop in the east wing. They were in high spirits with the anticipation of Kat joining them the following day.

The wind rustled through the trees, and the dry branches scraped against one another loudly.

Challe felt a presence behind him. Someone similar, surrounded by a cold, tense aura. He knew immediately who it was.

“Challe.”

It was Gladys. His hand landed on Challe’s shoulder.

“Don’t touch me so easily.” Challe shook off the hand and turned around. “That’s enough of this,” he said. “I don’t feel like pretending to be friends with you. What’s your purpose for approaching me?”

Challe fixed his eyes on Gladys, who broke into a smile.

“What pretty eyes,” Gladys remarked, smiling ambiguously.

“Quit your joking. I’ll cut you down.”

At that, Gladys’s aura suddenly changed. He was still smiling, but there was something cruel showing through, like a creature that had found its prey.

“I’m not joking,” he said. “Long, long ago, I imagined them so many times. The eyes of an obsidian fairy—I just knew they would be beautiful. Challe Fenn Challe. I’m glad I got to hear your name. If I hadn’t heard it, I might not have realized… I might not have known that you were the one I’ve been searching for.”

Searching?

Challe frowned.

“I didn’t know your name or your face. But I did know that you had been born. So I searched for you. Finally, I managed to guess where you were. But just as I was on my way to meet you, war broke out, and your whereabouts became unclear once more. At that point, I thought I might never see you again, for all eternity. I gave up looking, and a hundred years passed. I never expected to meet you like this.”

A certain possibility had occurred to Challe when Gladys had mentioned the dark chapel. There was one way to verify it.

“What is your true name?” Challe asked.

Slowly, Gladys answered, “My name is Lafalle Fenn Lafalle.”

Challe was taken aback, but at the same time, he wasn’t surprised. Confronted by the name, a chill ran through his body.

Lafalle Fenn Lafalle.

Fairies take their names from the resonance of the energy in the object from which they are born.

It was a familiar sound. A sound that had always been there, right next to him, close at hand. Challe knew that, and he was sure the other fairy knew it, too. He knew their names were echoes of things that had been close even before they were born.

“The obsidian that birthed you was inlaid into the hilt of a rusted sword, I believe. The sword was enshrined in the dark chapel in order to hide it. And on that same hilt, there was also an opal and a diamond—do you remember?”

He recalled a large opal of ambiguous color. It had been glistening right beside the obsidian from which Challe had come. That opal lacked the energy required to birth a fairy, so he had assumed that no fairy had been born from it. But the fairy must have already been born, and thus the stone’s energy was already gone.

There was no doubt about it. The fairy who had introduced himself as Gladys, Lafalle Fenn Lafalle, knew about the dark chapel where Challe had been born. And more compelling than anything else, his name was a sound that Challe recognized from long ago.

“I was born from that opal. The gemstones from which we came were specifically selected and inlaid into that sword. They were chosen with the expectation that someday, their energy would congeal and we would form from them. We’ve been destined to be together since before we were born.”

“But who…?”

Challe had occasionally wondered who the owner of the sword was. Lafalle must have known something to be able to tell him that the three stones on its hilt had been deliberately chosen.

“Who chose them?” asked Challe. “Those three stones?”

“The owner of the sword.”

“Tell me who that was.”

“Don’t fret, Challe. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I was born first, and I waited for you. I even thought that when the time came, and your stone was full of energy, I would stare at it and cause you to come into being. Once you were born, I wanted to teach you everything I knew and walk by your side. But through a series of unhappy accidents, that never came to pass. But we are supposed to be together. The fact that we met like this after a hundred years is proof of that, I think. Come with me. That is your fate.”

Lafalle slowly extended a hand, as if to tenderly invite Challe to come along.

“What are you talking about?” Challe demanded.

“There’s no need for you to live with humans. Break free from their domination and come with me.”

Human.

At that word, a cheerful face flashed into Challe’s mind.

Anne.

His thoughts, which had been growing chaotic, gradually settled down.

How could I ever let myself be led astray?

He wanted to know all the things that Lafalle was offering to tell him. But he didn’t want it badly enough to turn everything he had now upside down.

What a waste of time those hundred years spent fixated on his past with Liz had been. He understood that now. Perhaps Anne had taught him that.

Anne, who was always living life to the fullest. What she valued was the present, and from the present, she could look forward to the future. By watching her carefully, Challe had come to that realization.

It would be foolish of him to get hung up on things that had happened before he had even encountered Liz—like his own birth, which Challe himself did not remember.

Suddenly, he laughed. “Fate? That’s idiotic. Why should I go with you? I don’t need you. My destiny has nothing to do with the likes of you.”

“You want to be controlled by humans?”

“My wing is in my own hands. I’m not controlled by anyone.”

“But if you can’t separate yourself from the humans, then in the end, once someone finds out you’re a fairy without a master, you’ll be chased down by fairy hunters again, won’t you? I imagine that’s why you’ve chosen to work for the girl.”

“You’re wrong,” Challe insisted.

But Lafalle sneered suggestively. “Oh, really? Am I?” he asked. “Then as I suspected, you find the girl charming and can’t pull yourself away? That suits me just fine. That girl is a Silver Sugar Master. I can simply make her mine as well. If I do that, you’ll come with me, right?”

“I have no intention of handing her over.”

“Then I’ll take her. By force.”

“You talk big for someone whose wing is in the hands of a young woman, Lafalle Fenn Lafalle.”

Challe quickly opened his right hand. Sparkling beads of light gathered there.

“What do you think?” the other fairy asked. “That I can’t do it?”

As he spoke, Lafalle turned his right palm upward and stretched his arm straight out to the side. Shiny red sparkles of light began to gather there, and his hair suddenly took on a gleaming reddish tinge, starting at the top of his head and moving down to the tips.

Challe felt a wave of energy coming off Lafalle’s body, pushing against him like a powerful wind.

Lafalle gripped a bundle of fine, bladelike strands of light with his right hand. His hair shone bright red. There could be no doubt that he was the fairy who had attacked the Paige Workshop’s wagon on their way to the Selection. Challe had faced off against this fairy before.

“It was you?” Challe grit his teeth. He felt renewed regret for letting Lafalle get away the first time.

Ambiguity was a natural property of opal. The color and brightness of a fairy born from opal changed with their mood and the light that hit them. They had all kinds of hidden colors, so it was impossible to know what shade they might become at any time.

Bright red must have been Lafalle’s battle color.

“After you cut me, well, the injury took its toll. When I first met you here, I was so weak that I couldn’t fight. But now, thanks to the sugar candy made by the Silver Sugar Viscount, my strength is entirely restored! Look, I’m able to fight, like this.”

A silver blade had appeared in Challe’s hand, too. Along with it rose a thrilling feeling of excitement, almost joy. His wing grew taut and took on a hard, silver glint.

“Revealing your true form. What nerve,” said Lafalle.

The corners of Challe’s lips tipped up. “This time, there will be no escape.”

Lafalle smiled, too.

“What a mess. I don’t usually run away, you know. And seeing as you injured me, I was planning to slice you to bits. But the circumstances have changed. You are meant to be with me. I don’t want to harm you. And so I am at an overwhelming disadvantage. So instead of fighting, I will take that girl. If I do that, I expect you will become mine as well.”

Without waiting for Lafalle to finish speaking, Challe crouched low and slashed at him. Lafalle took a huge leap backward and landed among the trees.