Prologue

“Then the report was true?! The kingdom’s forces dealt the Knights of the Holy Spirit a crushing defeat on the Lacan Plain?!”

“Preposterous! Do you mean to say they initiated hostilities, disregarding not only our counsel but Her Holiness’s call for restraint? What could justify such folly?”

“And what has it gotten them? The kingdom’s raiders have struck nearly up to the walls of their holy keep!”

“Apostle Edith, Commander Dale the Dauntless sends his apologies, written in blood, along with his request for permission to fight a decisive battle. How shall we respond?”

A clamor of voices filled the austere chapel at the sacred heart of the pontiff’s domain, east of the Wainwright Kingdom—the seat of the Church of the Holy Spirit’s ultimate authority. Moonlight filtered through the stained glass window before which I, the least of the apostles, knelt in prayer. I rose silently and let a moment pass before answering the group that had once persecuted me for my half-demon, half-wolf ancestry.

“Do not panic. Remember where we are.” I carefully adjusted the hooded robe of pristine white that Her Holiness had granted me and turned around. My sleeves’ crimson trim brushed past the corner of my eye.

The faithful could not keep the alarm from their faces.

Is this any way for Her Holiness’s messengers to act? Have they no shame?!

“This defeat pales into insignificance in the grand scheme of things,” I said, sweeping my hand in a bold gesture. “The knights retain the bulk of their best fighters, and the holy keep stands strong. We have achieved our major objectives in the Wainwright Kingdom, in the League of Principalities, and just recently in Lalannoy. Yet at the same time, if by some remote chance, word of this matter should reach the ears of Her Holiness...” My beast ears stiffened under my hood. I stood straighter in spite of myself, recalling the Saint’s august words.

“Help me to fully restore the great spell Resurrection and make a world where no children cry.”

Forgive me, Your Holiness. Your humble servant will do her duty. And what duty could take precedence over protecting your sacred person?

“In her infinite mercy,” I continued calmly, left hand on my heart, “she will doubtless return to the Knightdom of the Holy Spirit to tend to the wounded. That would mean a defeat for us. What we need now is reliable intelligence. Go.”

“Yes, Apostle.” The faithful bowed low and left the chapel as one.

I remained, as did an old man clutching an antique crosier. Sumptuous robes swathed the wizened body of Pontiff Theobald III, and a slim circlet of gold crowned his gray hair. News of the unforeseen defeat seemed to lie heavily on him.

“‘The enemy vanguard reached the first gate, yet morale among our knights soars high as the heavens,’” he quoted, worry pooling in his eyes. “‘Though shame tests our endurance, we beg the guidance of the most holy church.’ It sounds as though Dale can barely restrain those calling for another battle.”

“This is merely reconnaissance in force. No doubt the knight commander knows that as well as we do. But many of his knights remain ignorant of the battlefield—and the dangers of challenging kingdom forces led by Howard the ‘god of war.’” I spat the last words and made for the door. The tap of a crosier on the stone floor trailed after me.

Damn! How could the knights on the front have slipped their leashes?

Leaving mass-produced spell-soldiers to guard against the kingdom’s elite forces had backfired, I supposed. How I longed to go purge the fools who had flouted Her Holiness’s command that very instant, but circumstances denied me the pleasure. The greater apostles had scattered to the four winds, pursuing their own missions in utmost secrecy, while two lesser apostles had gone rogue in Lalannoy. That left no one else to guard Her Holiness.

How could Ibush-nur and Ifur turn apostate? I still can’t believe it.

“Even the mighty Wainwright Kingdom can only muster so much military power,” I told the old pontiff without turning to look at him. “They’ve already committed troops to the empire, the league, and Lalannoy. They won’t seek a decisive battle with the Knights of the Holy Spirit.”

“I fully concur,” he said, “but news of the defeat will spread through the eastern nations. As will the apostles’ defection, in time, although we still know little enough of that ourselves. May I suggest that we take steps to stiffen their resolve before it does?”

The east had no large nations, excluding the Knightdom of the Holy Spirit, but its people had long revered the church and its teachings. If the kingdom sniffed out what had happened with Ifur and Ibush-nur, they would inevitably start maneuvering to undermine that faith in secret, forcing us to perform more damage control in their wake.

I nodded at Theobald over my shoulder. “I leave that to your discretion. Let us both strive to ensure Her Holiness’s peace of mind.”

“I thank you for showing such faith in my old bones.”

With that, the ostensible head of the church bowed and hurried from the chapel.

Oh, the irony.

The demonfolk and beastfolk blood in my veins made me no better than trash in the world he had always believed in. His heart might give out if he ever saw the horns and ears beneath my hood. I pictured the scene to distract myself as I gazed from the dim light of the mana lamps on the stone walls to the twinkling stars outside. How was I to tell her whom I served of the knights’ defeat and the apostles’ defection? Days had passed, and I felt no nearer an answer.

“Oh, I wouldn’t report to the Saint now if I were you.” A flippant voice cut into my reflections. “You’ll walk into a whole heap of trouble. The prime apostle’s dragged himself back from the empire, and he’s in a foul mood.”

A shock rattled my nerves. I had been alone in the chapel. I knew I had been alone. Yet the mana emanating from behind me seemed so potent it must have covered the whole church complex. How had it not tripped even one of my wards? It was like a bad joke. The former fourth apostle—the elder vampire Idris, who had died fighting Heaven’s Sword and Heaven’s Sage in Lalannoy—had been a freak in his own right, but his replacement was beyond the pale.

And how dare he refer to Her Holiness with so little respect?!

I turned, ignoring the new apostle I had just detected in the upper reaches of the great bell tower. On a bench wrought by the House of Shiki—a relic predating the age of strife, on which only the reigning pontiff had a right to sit—rested a white-haired, crimson-eyed young man with his legs crossed. The dhampir’s white robe matched mine except for the color of its trim. He also wore a single-edged dagger at his side.

“Fourth Apostle Zelbert Régnier,” I said.

“That’s Isolde outside,” he noted, wiping his spectacles with a scrap of cloth. “A real firecracker. Her father’s Yz—formerly Miles Talito, the Heaven and Earth Party leader who invited the church into Lalannoy in the first place. She’s adopted, though. They’re our new numbers five and six, respectively. Yz rushed off to see the prime apostle downstairs, but the girl and I are on standby here for the moment. I hear some ‘rats’ are poking their noses into the pontiff’s domain, and we’re the ratcatchers. Anyway, I know we outrank you on the battlefield, but you’ve been around places like this longer than we have. Give us any odd jobs you see fit.”

I held my tongue. He had headed off my questions and left me with more. I still didn’t even know what the prime apostle and his party had been doing in the Yustinian capital. Did their return—news to me—have something to do with the departure of Her Holiness’s loyal guard Viola and Third Apostle Levi? And what “rats” were we meant to catch? I had so much to ask. But first...

“Tell me one thing, Régnier.”

“Apostle Ifur—or former Marchese Fossi Folonto, if you prefer—was leaking information,” the dhampir interrupted me, pausing to breathe on his spectacles. “I guess that ex-earl from the east of the kingdom had been investigating on the sly. Rupert, I think his name was. Pretty quick on his feet for a guy with all that blubber.”

I couldn’t recall the corpulent man’s face on the spur of the moment, but he had struck me as typical ex-aristocratic scum. I would never have pegged such a nobody as a secret investigator.

“And Ibush-nur—Raymond Despenser—was an apostate as well?” I pressed.

There was a long pause. Then...

“Yeah.” Régnier put his spectacles back on and gazed up at the ceiling. His hand reached for The Advent of the Holy Spirit, a masterpiece of stained glass that caught the feeble glow of the mana lamps. “He flew at me and Isolde out of nowhere when we had Ifur dead to rights. We told him we’d spare his life if he came quietly, but he fought to the bitter end anyway. The bodies ended up blasted to bits, and we still don’t know who they were passing info to. They both did their jobs in Lalannoy so well that I never suspected a thing.”

My own reaction gave me pause. I had known Ibush-nur—or at least known of him—since before Her Holiness’s grand design had begun to advance openly. Now he was dead, and as an apostate, the worst disgrace imaginable. Why did something about that nag at me, like coarse grit where it didn’t belong?

Régnier stood and rested his hands on the back of the bench. “Word is that the second apostle got himself captured in the Yustinian capital too. No idea if he’s still alive, but Alicia will be filling his shoes for now.”

“Apostle Io?!” I exclaimed, incredulous. Io “Black Blossom” Lockfield had assassinated numerous officers, sorcerers, and other persons of note to smooth our path. I couldn’t pretend to like the great demisprite sorcerer after the many times he had heaped scorn on me, but I would never doubt his ability. How could he fall into enemy hands?

“Including the captured Black Blossom,” Régnier said matter-of-factly, hand on his chin, “we lost four apostles fighting in Lalannoy and the empire. I’m sure the Saint has something in mind, but this war is only going to get fiercer. The Wainwright Kingdom shows no mercy when it means business. Prepare for the worst.”

“You exaggerate!” I snapped, unable to keep a note of challenge out of my voice after that second plain “Saint.” Quickly recognizing my lapse, I tugged my hood and added, “I agree that the kingdom is formidable, but I don’t see why we can’t divide and conquer its forces.”

At present, they were rallying the powers of the west. They had all but succeeded in building a coalition against the church, but a string of incidents had left deep scars on the League of Principalities, the Yustinian Empire, and the Lalannoy Republic. As allies, they would be more hindrance than help—hardly a cause for alarm. Even I, the least of the seven apostles, could rival an army unaided.

A drawn-out sigh told me what Régnier thought of that.

“Apostle Edith, now’s your chance to learn something. Take it.”

A chill ran down my spine. The dhampir had skewered me with his crimson gaze.

“Don’t underestimate the Wainwright Kingdom,” he continued. “We might have gotten the better of them strategically so far, but they can still turn the tables with raw military might. That country’s not normal.”

“What do you mean?” I asked slowly, curiosity overcoming fear.

Régnier flipped back his white hair—and vanished.

“Haven’t you ever wondered”—his voice struck my ears from behind—“why Wainwright dukes and their children claim the style ‘Highness,’ and why other countries go along with it? You’ve got to admit, that’s not normal. It seemed weird to me when I was young, so I did some digging.”

Was that short-range teleportation?! Why couldn’t I even sense him cast the spell?!

“W-Well...” I hesitated. The gulf between Régnier’s power and my own took my breath away, but I couldn’t disgrace myself. Her Holiness had appointed me an apostle in my own right. I bit back my fear by sheer force of will and offered the answer anyone in the west of the continent could have given. “They intermarried with the royal family when the kingdom was founded, and their duchies might as well be independent as far as foreign relations are concerned. Doesn’t that explain it?”

Régnier’s presence vanished. “Well, that’s the story.” Clack. Clack. His footfalls echoed in the chapel. “But it’s not the truth.”

An icy draft ruffled the ashen hair beneath my hood.

“The kingdom’s Four Great Ducal Houses are sentries,” he whispered in my ear, “stationed to put down the Royal House of Wainwright if they ever start chasing a certain forbidden fruit. Their founders were all legends, you know? Saved the world and everything. The eight grand dukes, including an Alvern Hero, chose them for the job. Of course, the whole thing’s becoming a bit of a formality at this point.”

I froze, speechless, my assumptions shaken.

I-If he’s telling the truth, the kingdom’s dukes were put in place so that they could wipe out the Wainwrights at a moment’s notice.

Régnier took a step back, grinning mirthlessly at my stunned response. “So you see,” he continued, no longer whispering, “the Wainwright Kingdom’s been equipped to outfight just about any other nation from its inception. There’s a reason they were able to turn the human defeat in the War of the Dark Lord into such a narrow thing. I’m sure the Saint’s playing her own game, slow and steady, but you can count on a string of hard fights coming up—fights we won’t all survive, especially now that the Brain of the Lady of the Sword has taken the stage. In terms of pure command of magic, you can count his equals since gods walked the earth on one hand. And while I’m only in this for myself, you’ve got a dream to worry about. So whatever else you do, don’t get cocky, or you’ll be dead before you know it.”

After a few moments, I managed a tense “As you say.”

“Anyway, take it easy till it’s time to go rat catching. Let the prime apostle, Alicia, and Yz handle the hard stuff. That was a message from ‘Her Holiness,’ by the way.”

The dhampir smirked and disappeared, leaving me alone, standing rooted to the chapel floor. The clang of funeral bells pierced the darkness of night.

✽

“Io is dead.”

The man’s voice sounded, solemn, in the mana lamplight of the flower garden that filled the innermost sanctum of the pontiff’s domain. Prime Apostle Aster Etherfield, the Sage, wore a hooded cloak and carried a damaged staff dedicated to the stars of the western heavens. His face showed no fatigue, although he had not stopped to rest on our way from the empire to the pontifical palace. Admittedly, he had teleported himself. Still, between his tireless drive and his general lack of expression, he could have been a puppet.

The new apostle, Yz, knelt at his feet, by the edge of a pond. He could have been a statue.

I, Alicia “Crescent Moon” Coalfield, the one and only lieutenant and lover of the great Shooting Star, took a seat on a nearby rock. “Is he really?” I asked, shading myself with my black parasol. “I was afraid that might happen. Still, I don’t suppose the imperial capital got away unscathed.”

The second apostle’s fellow demisprites had cast him out as a boy because he’d had the misfortune to be born with black wings. The episode had instilled in him a general hatred of mortalkind. He had always been too quick to let down his guard—I blamed childishness—but, at bottom, he had been diligent, confident, and fairly competent as well. His last, desperate rampage must have left its mark. Not that I imagined he could have had an easy time breaking free of the spell-gaol. That thing was all that remained of a black gate, an artifact far beyond mortal understanding.

Aster’s azure eyes grew narrower than usual as he made his report.

“The movements of the stars and the ice sculptures I left behind tell me that he laid low the Yustinians’ ‘Castle Breaker.’”

“My. Little Io outdid himself.” I raised the brim of my black hat and stole a glance at the ashen-haired Saint, who sat on a lamplit sofa with her white hood still raised. Everything so far had gone just as she and that man had hoped it would. It appeared that loading Io with a piece of Tenebrous Wolf on top of Stone Serpent had been worth their trouble.

Aster gave the ground a sudden sharp rap with the butt of his staff. The nearby flowers and the surface of the pond froze solid. The old pendant around the Saint’s neck swayed as his azure gaze bored into her.

“To business,” he said in glacial tones. “Arthur Lothringen has disappeared. What have you done?”

But the pretty little thing didn’t turn a hair. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked, turning the page of her book, Concerning the World Tree. An arboreal colossus adorned its heavy green cover, alongside a pair of girls drawn with the ears and tails of cats. Each held a gun, one divine, the other diabolical.

“Do not play the fool!” Aster gave the earth another thump, and the flower garden completed its transformation into a frozen waste. The new apostle groaned—the frost had gotten to him as well, poor thing. “My plan called for Heaven’s Sword to remain onstage a while yet! We could have safely arranged his exit after we had finished gathering all eight great spells except for the Hero’s Thunderbolt and the Dark Lord’s Dividing Wind! Who knows what Heaven’s Sage might do without him, and now we lack a sacrifice for the final altar in Shiki!”

“Yes, of course. Edith tells me that Lalannoy has fallen eerily silent since Heaven’s Sword disappeared,” the Saint replied with equanimity and touched a frozen flower. A breath of new life restored garden and apostle alike.

“I haven’t done a thing, Aster. Really I haven’t.” The Saint clasped her old pendant to her chest and lowered her gaze. “I might have Stone Serpent’s kind protection, but I’m still a feeble woman. What could I hope to do to Lalannoy’s champion? You know that better than anyone. And how would I have even gotten there from here? I can’t teleport.”

Aster scowled and turned his back. He couldn’t dismiss all his doubts, but condemning this girl without proof would send his plans even further off course. The Hero’s ruse had already cost him his chance to steal the first forbidden tome of the Bibliophage, that sinister sorceress from the age of gods who had performed a true Resurrection. And he had lost Io, a useful pawn, into the bargain. He preferred to avoid any more disorder at this stage, I supposed. As outlandish as the living Saint’s powers had proven to be, they didn’t lend themselves to disposing of Heaven’s Sword—at least as far as the brilliant prime apostle knew.

Aster mended his battered staff with mana and started drawing a teleportation circle—a memento of Io. “A few ‘rats’ have slipped into the pontiff’s domain: the old fox who killed Idris and an Algren brat, among others.”

“I’ve given Zel orders,” said the Saint. “I’ll keep Isolde and Edith here as well. Still, I hear this fox is an accomplished fighter. I’d like you to lend me Alicia for a few days so that she can join the hunt as well.”

Aster hesitated. “And Dialogues on the Apocrypha of the Great Moon?”

“In the southern capital, I believe. I’ve sent Viola and Levi,” the Saint answered smoothly. One would almost think she had known all Aster’s news in advance.

Aster completed a great, eight-petaled black flower, banished all emotion from his face, and stepped forward. “Very well, then. It wasn’t in the original plan, but Yz and I will be visiting Shiki now that the kingdom has incorporated it. Alicia, follow with the sacrifice once your search is complete.”

For the first time, the Saint’s smile faded. “May I ask why? I know the archive there hides the final altar, but I don’t believe we can achieve the results we desire by using it now—not even if you find an active black gate, as Etherfield tradition would have it. And in any case, surely the precise location remains a mystery.”

“All the more reason.” Aster’s lips curled in scorn as he passed into the circle. “Io’s last act paralyzed the Yustinians, and the Howards are too preoccupied warring with the Knights of the Holy Spirit to interfere. We will take this opportunity to locate the archive using the floral orb set in the sword North Star and secure the Bibliophage’s other tome. And when better to dispose of the Brain of the Lady of the Sword if he pokes his nose in? The plan remains—I’ve merely reordered its steps.”

“I see your point,” the Saint said slowly. “But Aster, I worry about you and Yz going alone. Won’t you delay your departure, or at least add Zel to—”

“No need,” the prime apostle snapped coldly—as the Saint had predicted he would—and vanished. The kneeling Yz promised “results” before slipping into the black flower as well.

Once the last traces of the circle had faded and I had satisfied myself that Aster had left no eavesdropping spells or other tricks, I slipped off my rock and brushed off my dress with the hand not holding my parasol. A long-tailed bird appeared, trailing an emerald sash of unearthly beauty. It circled and then was gone.

Watching the whole time, I suppose. You certainly haven’t grown any more pleasant.

The black dragon sensed its mortal foe and lashed out from the Saint’s shadow, stirring up wild gusts that sent flower petals spiraling. The Saint’s fingers disturbed the unfathomable green mana that hung in the air as she revealed the beast ears beneath her hood and met my gaze. Mirth filled her now crimson eyes. Her lips curled.

“Alicia,” she said, “do look after Aster for me, won’t you?”

“Certainly,” I replied. “I know just what you mean, Iria of the eastern capital.”

Oh, how simply delicious! Aster Etherfield, “Sage” and fool, how I hope that you achieve your heart’s desire and manage to live just a little while longer! All for my own ambition, naturally.

I felt the captive dragon’s snarls of rage—and its pitiable cries as the Saint’s restraining thorns dug into it—on my back as I pulled the brim of my black hat low. I could feel the smile playing on my lips.

Chapter 1

“What? You mean you didn’t meet Duchess Rosa in Earl Coalheart’s domain? But that changes everything,” I exclaimed in spite of myself from my sofa in an old church on the western outskirts of Jardin, the Yustinian imperial capital.

The woman in the elegant chair across from me looked up from the new map of Shiki in her hands. “Allen of the wolf clan! Did you think I kidnapped the girl?” demanded Shise Glenbysidhe, called Floral Heaven. The great demisprite sorceress kept her long lavender hair tied back with a jade-green ribbon and once again wore her floral military beret with a Royal Academy uniform. Her back bore no wings. “Yes, I took brainless Io and little Rosa on a long, long journey. I had my reasons. But let me be clear: It was her choice to come along!”

I forced a laugh and wiped cold sweat on my white shirtsleeve, avoiding her eyes. Evidently I had prodded a sore spot.

A field of flowers filled the view from the window. Butterflies of living azure ice flitted among them in the sunlight. I took out my pocket watch and checked the time.

They must be in their informal meeting with the imperial officials by now, surely.

Mere days ago, we had battled Io Lockfield in the imperial palace. The Church of the Holy Spirit had been causing disasters in every nation on the continent, and apostles like “Black Blossom” oversaw their dirty work. Io had branded himself with not only Stone Serpent but also Tenebrous Wolf, a great elemental we had never previously encountered, and consumed the would-be Hero Igna Alvern, transforming himself into a monster that we had only narrowly succeeded in slaying. And the spoils of victory had proven alarming in their own right.

Lady Shise left off glaring at me and sniffed loudly. “Anyway, this is thorough work—although coming from a Walker, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Who knows how my idiot apprentice got his hands on it. Now tell me, do you think it has something to do with Rosa?”

Vexedly she laid the map on the table between us. It had been found sewn into the lining of Io’s witch hat and showed the Shiki region, which the empire had ceded following the recent northern campaign. Notes in a woman’s hand dotted the chart, which bore the signature of Millie Walker—a woman who had supposedly passed away in the royal capital eleven years prior and the mother of my student Ellie. Her writing was as fresh as the map.

Io himself had also muttered something about the “Shiki archive” in his death throes. According to the Hero, Alice Alvern, the place held the second half of a forbidden tome, a relic of the Bibliophage. She alone in all history had performed a successful Resurrection, a feat beyond even the gods, who had still walked the earth in her day. The archive also contained the seventh altar, along with a signpost pointing to the final one and, most likely, another of those “black gates” that defied mortal understanding.

If we managed to reach the archive without incident, it might furnish information about the great elementals Tenebrous Wolf, Lunar Cat, and Tempest Kingfisher. But in any event, we needed to locate it before the church, seal it against them, and retrieve the dangerous tome. We couldn’t have them manifesting any more wyrms, World Trees, angels, devils, or false gods. The trouble was, no one knew where to find the place. Not even Millie had marked the archive, leaving us with no choice but to go look for it ourselves.

Unfortunately, the empire seemed dead set on recognizing my achievement with a grand ceremony at the palace. Two days earlier, I had received a letter bearing the signature of Princess Yana Yustin, who had returned from the royal capital in haste. It had laid out plans for Alice, the Hero herself, to personally confer the name of Alvern, first among the grand ducal houses, upon me. As proof of which, I was to receive Bright Night, one of two swords reputedly wielded by a Hero in the age of gods. Any more would be blatant excess. And yet...

I didn’t wish to leave the city without questioning Lady Shise on a certain subject. Namely: the life of Duchess Rosa Howard. As a result, I had begged to remain here with one guard while my highborn companions and my sister, who had distinguished herself greatly in the battle against Io, went in my place. They had forced me to remake the lots three times before settling on who would serve guard duty, but that was part of their charm.

I chuckled in spite of myself as the girls’ disgruntled faces passed one by one before my mind’s eye. I could practically hear their voices: one “You could always come with us, sir” backed by two reproachful “Allen”s. Lydia—the Lady of the Sword, eldest daughter of Duke and Duchess Leinster, and my partner since we’d met during the Royal Academy entrance exams—had remained worryingly accommodating throughout. Still, she could hardly get up to any serious mischief with the professor along as escort. Probably. I hoped.

A mumbled “cheesecake” with an accompaniment of groans and hums caught my notice. Not far away, Alice, the lady of the old church, lay dozing on the hearth rug with three great elementals—Atra the Thunder Fox, Lia the Blazing Qilin, and Lena the Frigid Crane—all hugging each other and bundled in white blankets. The warm fire must have proven too much for them. As for the brand-new maid uniforms they all wore, I decline to comment.

Footfalls announced the return from the kitchenette of a young woman who tied her long, azure-tinged platinum hair with a sky-blue ribbon. The fair hands of Duke Howard’s elder daughter, Stella, set about neatly arranging porcelain cups on the table. Her informal white sweater and azure skirt became her wonderfully. An amber stream poured from her teapot, giving off clouds of fragrant steam.

“Thank you for waiting, Mr. Allen, Lady Shise,” she said. “Help yourselves.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

“Thanks,” added Floral Heaven.

The victor of the heated lottery, my sister’s best friend and also my student, smiled—and hesitated. “Umm...” She seemed unsure whether to take a chair or join me on the sofa.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you, Stella?” The great sorceress who had been Duchess Rosa’s mentor raised her teacup ostentatiously. “Love is war.”

“O-Of course! Thank you, Lady Shise. M-Mr. Allen, would you... Well, I mean... Please excuse me.” The young noblewoman, who had by now saved so many people all over the continent that she had attracted a following as a living saint, blushed and slipped lightly onto the sofa beside me, where she let slip a shy yet happy giggle. I shuddered to think what might have followed if any of the maids on guard duty had been there to see her.

I was just shooting a reproving look at Lady Shise, who appeared thoroughly pleased with herself, when I felt a tug on my left sleeve.

“I h-had a little extra time, so I tried, well, baking cookies the way Mina and the other maids showed me. I’m c-certain they won’t compare to Lydia’s or Lily’s or even Ellie’s, but I wondered if...”

“I’d love some.” I snagged a cookie shaped like a little wolf cub from a plate on the table and popped it into my mouth. It crunched, sweet but not too sweet. “Delicious. I really mean it.”

“Y-You really think so?” Stella hid her mouth behind a wooden tray and giggled again, swaying from side to side in time with a stray lock of her hair. She looked just like her little sister Tina at times like this.

“Well, well,” Lady Shise murmured appreciatively, biting into a cookie as well. “So you can bake as well as cook? Rosa always struggled in the kitchen. Io grumbled every time she took a turn cooking for us on the road.”

“Mother couldn’t cook?” Stella sounded taken aback. Her memories must have told a different story, even if death had parted her from her mother at a young age. Duke Walter Howard hadn’t told me any such thing about his late wife either.

Lady Shise finished her second cookie and winked. “Io told her she had ‘a talent for concocting poisons.’ Well, I bet she made an extra effort for the Wolf of the North. Just like you’ve been doing, Stella.”

“I...I beg your pardon?!” Saint Wolf blushed bright red again and half rose from her seat with a resentful groan.

Lady Shise removed her beret and chuckled wickedly, twirling it on her finger. “It takes me right back to my youth. Now, where was I?”

“You were telling me about where you met Duchess Rosa,” I said. “The papers left with the Ducal House of Howard only described her as a daughter of Earl Coalheart.”

Stella and Tina’s mother had gone by three house names in her lifetime: “Howard” as a duchess; “Coalheart” as a descendant of earls; and her original house name, “Etherheart,” from a line of witches.

Almost a year ago now, Duke Walter had confided in me that Duchess Rosa might have been murdered, the victim of a curse. Much about her remained shrouded in mystery, including her research on the Eight Great Elementals. But perhaps Lady Shise, who had traveled the continent with her, held the answers.

A floral beret rose lightly into the air.

“The Coalhearts are an old family. Their history goes all the way back to the age of gods. And Rosa was the last of the Grand Ducal House of Etherheart. I bet they guarded her like their lives depended on it.” Lady Shise put the beret back on her head and gazed out the window. “Has it really been more than twenty years since she and I first met? It was in a tribal settlement on the northern edge of the empire, near the Black Peaks. I wanted to check out some ruins from the age of gods—before my nemesis, the Apostate of the Great Moon, got to them.”

A great wave of mana surged from her little body, rattling the pot, cups, and plates on the table.

“The northern tribes,” I repeated, mitigating the burst before it affected the rest of the room. “The same tribes that the Yustinian Empire has been skirmishing with for so many years?”

“They’re a ragtag bunch of beastfolk who keep to the old Star Oath and live even more closed off from the world than the lion clan in the Valley of Flowers, way out west in the kingdom. Not a bad lot, once you get to know them.”

More facts that I had never found in any book. The world was vast indeed. Beside me, Stella gave another tug on my sleeve.

“And were mother’s, well, family there with her?” she asked meekly.

The great sorceress toyed with a lock of lavender hair and sadly shook her head. “Rosa’s parents and any other relatives she had just left her with the chieftains one day, and she never heard from them since. I tried to track them down every way I could think of, and I still drew a blank.”

A log snapped in the fireplace and noisily crumbled.

Lady Shise tapped the table, a faraway look in her eyes. “Rosa told me her people used to live even farther north than the tribes, over the Black Peaks, which people have been calling impassable since the age of gods, in a place they call Star’s End. I’d normally laugh at a story like that, but these are the Etherhearts we’re talking about. That house has produced any number of champions, geniuses, and masters of magic. They’ve left a big mark on the world. If anyone could do it, they could. And the chieftains worshipped Rosa like a messenger from the gods themselves.”

Star’s End? Is that where Frigid Crane belongs?

The ring on the third finger of my right hand flashed as though to demand what was taking me so long. I slid cookies onto a fresh dessert plate and called to the girl most likely to know more.

“Alice.”

“Mmm. The Etherhearts have had a northern stronghold since before the age of strife. Hup!” The platinum-blonde Hero deftly slipped free of the children’s embrace and sprang into the air, levitating herself into a seat on my lap as though nothing could be more natural.

“Whoa there! Try to be careful,” I said, while Stella froze, utterly taken aback.

The peerless Hero with a peerless case of bed head kicked her little legs and snatched one of Stella’s cookies. “I don’t know the details either. The Etherhearts disappeared from the history books with Twin Heavens, after the Continental War. And the black dragon has always kept watch over that place. You know we and it don’t get along.”

It took me a moment to muster a slow “I see.”

Alice and Lady Shise can’t tell us any more, and we can’t realistically go and see for ourselves. I suppose that leaves one possibility: that Shiki archive.

I was preparing Alice’s tea, lost in silent reflections, when Stella overcame her paralysis and stood up, color rising in her cheeks.

“R-Really, Alice!” she exclaimed, waving her arms. “Wh-What do you think you’re doing, sitting on Mr. Allen like that?! I wish I— Ahem! M-Move off of him at once! You’re being indecent!”

A flurry of ice flakes sprang up in sympathy with her. While I suppressed her mana to keep it from waking the children, the platinum-blonde girl finished her cookie and took a sip of tea.

“The cookies are so-so, Saint Wolf,” she said. “Keep working at it.”

“Th-Thank you.” Stella sounded genuinely pleased. Then a pout overtook her expression. “But that’s beside the point!”

Who does she remind me of? Oh, yes—Cheryl, when Alice used to tease her.

I recalled my former classmate, currently no doubt discharging her duties as first princess of the Wainwright Kingdom in the heart of the Lalannoy Republic. Had my letter reached her yet, I wondered?

Alice clasped her cup in both hands, looked back at me from my lap, and flashed a faint smile. Lady Shise gasped.

“Allen,” the Hero said, “do my hair.”

“Certainly, my lady,” I replied. “Wait just a moment.”

I levitated the cheerful grand duchess to one side and rose. As I crossed the carpet to fetch a brush, an uncharacteristically sullen young noblewoman pouted with a drawn-out “Mr. Allen.”

“If you’d like,” I said, tucking the blanket back over the napping children, “and only if you’d like, I’d be happy to do your hair next.”

“Y-Yes, thank you. I would. I...I’ll go make more tea!” Saint Wolf set off toward the kitchenette with her hair swaying and a spring in her step. This childish side was another thing she shared with Tina.

Having retrieved the brush from a chair, I returned to the sofa and unthreaded the gold ribbon from Alice’s long blonde tresses, which I then set to work untangling. Her hair had grown far paler than I’d seen it in the royal capital.

The great sorceress had been observing the sequence of events unfold. “A ‘natural way with young ladies.’” She sniffed. “Truer words were never spoken.”

“Your ladyship misunderstands,” I protested. “Please don’t believe everything you hear from the professor.”

“You’re not fooling anyone,” came the reply.

“Face yourself, Allen,” the Hero added.

I groaned, seeing no hope of victory in this battle. Gently straightening Alice’s tangles, I decided to change the subject. “St-Still, you must have had a hard time taking Duchess Rosa away from those tribes if they held her in such reverence.”

“It was easy. Like I told you, she was dead set on going.” Lady Shise considered for a moment, then added milk and sugar to her tea. She slowly stirred them in using a teaspoon adorned with twin swords as her reminiscence continued. “Even at that young age, Rosa understood her position—what it meant to house the Frigid Crane. Not long after we met, she said to me, ‘Make me your apprentice and take me away from here. I need to get strong.’ I’ll never forget the look in her eyes.” Her voice shook with affection and regret. I doubted that she even noticed.

She really must have loved Duchess Rosa.

“I didn’t know what to make of it. I hesitated. Can you blame me? Rosa couldn’t have been more than six or seven at the time. I had no idea whether she could hold up to a long pursuit, and there were plenty of dangers on the road.”

Lady Shise had been hunting the “Apostate of the Great Moon” for many long years. Could she really take a little girl on such a quest?

“But Io gave me the push I needed. ‘Let’s take her!’ he said. ‘I swear I’ll keep her safe.’”

I stopped brushing in surprise. “Io said that?”

Will wonders never cease? I assumed he would have objected.

“He was a black-wing, shunned by everybody,” the great sorceress continued forlornly, holding her cup in both hands. “Nothing pretty about the story of his birth either. Even his foster parents abandoned him, and he’d choked down just about all the bitterness life has to offer before I took him in. I bet he saw his younger self in little Rosa, all alone in the world. Not that we’ll ever know for sure, now that he’s dead.”

Nor would we ever learn why Io “Black Blossom” Lockfield had fallen to darkness. I could only guess that the second apostle had been subjected to experiments meant to combat the Dark Lord. My university friends from the west of the kingdom had suffered that fate as children. So, Io had fought to protect young Duchess Rosa like his life depended on it and died with her name on his lips.

I was just pulling a blanket over Alice, whose breathing had slipped back into the rhythm of sleep while I was distracted, when the door opened. The girls were back from the palace, and a babble of voices brightened the room.

“Did you miss me, Stella?!”

“Eek! T-Tina?!”

“What are you up to, Lydia? You heaped praises on me in front of Princess Yana. And you never missed a chance to call me ‘Alvern’!”

“Honestly, Caren. You love making me out to be the villain. Do I need a reason to compliment my sister-in-law?”

“I do not have a sister-in-law!”

“I worked my butt off this time, ma’am! Give me a uniform!”

“Oh? I believe ‘Lady Lily Leinster’ deserves all the credit for today’s performance. And as head maid to the Ducal House of Leinster, I ought to know!”

“Oh, come on!”

Even the children snapped out of their doze.

Lady Shise snatched up another cookie and popped it into her mouth. “I guess that’s all for now. Why don’t we pick up the story this evening?” Reluctantly, she added, “There are parts I’d rather not tell Stella or Tina.”

“I’d appreciate it. And...” I exchanged a glance with Lydia, still bantering with a school-uniformed Caren. In an instant, we were on the same page.

Yes, ma’am.

I turned back to the great sorceress. “May I invite one other person to join us?”

✽

“There. I think that ought to do it,” I murmured in my room that night, setting my quill on the desk and closing the memo pad on which I kept records for myself and the notebooks in which I drafted assignments for the girls. In the night beyond the windowpanes, the moon and stars cast a faint light on the garden flowers. The children, who had burst in on me several nights in a row with a chorus of “Allen!” “Lia here!” and “It is I,” were nowhere in evidence. Only the occasional crack of firewood burning on the hearth broke the stillness.

The visitor I did expect seemed unlikely to arrive for some time yet, so I perused the letter from Lynne that Anna had delivered earlier. Lydia’s levelheaded younger sister had completed her mission in the southern capital, it seemed. She had met with Else, president of the Skyhawk Company that held a virtual monopoly on griffin mail, as well as Marchesa Carlotta Carnien, one of the League of Principalities’ most brilliant minds, who had fallen under a nearly fatal curse after delving into mysteries surrounding the Church of the Holy Spirit.

The first principe’s house name was Primavera, and they collaborated with the Bibliophage to create the prototype of ten-day fever?

Eleven years earlier, that curse had turned the royal capital into a plague zone and led to the death of Ellie’s father, Remire Walker.

And the marchesa believes that Aster Etherfield, prime apostle and “Sage,” was one of the culprits. She also identifies him as the Apostate of the Great Moon. But Lady Shise claimed that he was someone else after their clash at the old church a few days ago. What does it all mean?

Still racking my brain, I moved on to a second letter. Then my door opened without a knock. Lydia strode in, newly dressed in a pale-scarlet nightgown and wearing her long hair in a loose bun, and sank onto the bed as though it belonged to her.

“Sit,” she said, thumping a spot to her left—not a sign of a good mood.

“You do realize that I’m expecting Lady Shise?” I ventured. “I told you earlier today.”

“Sit!”

From our Royal Academy days to the present moment, I had never found a way of stopping Lydia when she dug her heels in like this.

“When will Your Highness learn to be reasonable?” I sighed, returning Lynne’s letter to its envelope before rising and reseating myself on her left. The willful noblewoman leaned over and lay down, using my lap as a pillow.

“Honestly!” she fumed, touching her left ring finger. “You haven’t been showing your mistress anywhere near the respect she’s due lately! Shouldn’t you be thinking of me before the fate of the world or the future of the kingdom?” Her voice dropped to a barely audible grumble. “Our pact is running out, remember? You cast it, so take responsibility and see it through.”

True enough, Lydia and I had been spending more time acting separately than in concert. And our magical pact, the artificial link that allowed us to sense each other as long as we kept within the same city or so, really was weakening over time. Of course, I only put up with both because I trusted the sullen girl genius—just a few months my senior, muttering “Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable” with her head in my lap—more than I trusted anyone else in the world.

“Do you think so?” I said, tenderly stroking Lydia’s hair.

“Yes, I do!” she snapped.

We’d been having this same argument since the Royal Academy, and the familiarity cheered me in spite of myself. So much had happened, but we remained the same people we had always been deep down. Even if we fell short alone, there was no foe we couldn’t overcome together.

My grin broadened—not the response Lydia had hoped for, to judge by her “jeez,” her pout, and the way she raised herself to a sitting position and grabbed a blanket.

“I’m surprised Princess Yana was able to return on such short notice,” I said.

“So was she, apparently,” Lydia replied. “You should have seen how nervous she looked.”

Princess Yana Yustin was, true to her house name, a lady of the imperial line and the sitting emperor’s granddaughter. I had heard that the future empress, as many viewed her, had struck up a friendship with Lydia and Cheryl in the royal capital. And she had rushed back here without waiting for the formal conclusion of her nation’s peace treaty with the kingdom. Had losing his right hand, the grand marshal, in the fight against Io really dealt such a blow to the aged emperor’s health?

Lydia wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and snuggled up to me under it. “It sounds like the old emperor will attend tomorrow’s audience. So should you, if you’ve gotten most of what you need out of Shise by then,” she commanded, composed yet blushing. “Aren’t you glad? This is your chance to get your name in the official record. The professor is all in favor too.” Again her voice sank to a grumble. “I can’t stand ‘Allen Alvern,’ though. I’d better get Yana to rewrite it later.”

Damn it, Professor! I thought you were acting unusually standoffish at dinner, and all the while you’ve been plotting against me! Oh, Anko would never let you get away with this tyranny!

While my thoughts were on the majestic black cat currently working with my old school friend Teto Tijerina in the royal capital, Lydia stopped mumbling unsettling plans beside me long enough to press her fingers together and make a bashful suggestion.

“O-Of course, if you really insist, I could always have her rewrite my name to L-Lydia Alver—”

“Please, Your Highness, no,” I interrupted. “Don’t threaten the future empress of a foreign power to aid and abet you in the crime of falsifying official documents. Don’t you realize that everyone involved will take their complaints to me?”

“Excuse me?! That was your cue to say, ‘Yes, good idea. Let’s do that.’ What other reasonable answer was there? But no, you love to make yourself infuriating. And get that ring off your finger already. It’s an eyesore.”

“Wait, that’s what you get mad about? And I can’t remove the ring until—”

“Just take it off!” Lydia whined, throwing herself at the ring that Twin Heavens had fastened to my finger. Then came a rather reserved knock, and both our gazes turned to the door.

Lady Shise gave an exasperated shrug. She wore a cape over a nightgown the same lavender shade as her hair, which she’d tied behind her head, and carried a bottle of red wine. Duchess Rosa’s brooch, a memento of Io, gleamed on her breast.

“It’s nice to see somebody getting along,” she said. “Have a souvenir.”

The wine bottle traced a leisurely arc toward me.

“Thank you,” I said, catching it. “Lydia, will you—”

“Yes, I’ll drink. Slice some cheese.”

I wrapped my half of the blanket around her and stood up. I heard my companions talking behind me while I fetched a wheel of cheese off a shelf, cut it in the kitchenette, and arranged the slices on a small plate.

“How’re Scarlet Heaven and that little tomboy Lisa?” asked Lady Shise.

“You know my mother and grandmother?” Lydia replied. “I wish they were a little less well so they’d mind their own business.”

“Oh yeah? Glad to hear it. And I’ve been just about everywhere in the west of the continent.”

“Oh really?”

“Even the eastern lands?” I interjected, setting the plate and wineglasses on a round side table and sinking into a chair next to Lydia, who had left the bed.

“Of course.” Lady Shise, who had occupied the roomy sofa, spread her arms grandiloquently. “Believe it or not, I set the barriers in the forest around the Great Tree. You can thank me any time!”

“My sister and I used to play in those woods as children,” I said, leaving out the fact that the barrier in question had had a hole in it big enough for a young Caren to slip through. No doubt the years had taken their toll. Instead, I conjured a miniature tornado to uncork the bottle and poured the great sorceress some wine. It emerged a luscious red with a magnificent bouquet. A product of the empire, I presumed.

Lady Shise crossed her legs. “Your scarlet lady friend has perfect timing,” she said, already nibbling on a piece of cheese. “I want us all on the same page. Allen, take everyone you can and head for Shiki after your audience with the emperor tomorrow. You should focus on—”

“Locating the archive there and securing the Bibliophage’s second tome, the other half of the one the Alverns keep here,” I finished for her.

“And seal off the seventh altar that’s supposed to be there while we’re at it,” Lydia added, taking a bite out of my piece of cheese. Really, she had some nerve. “We can’t let the church use that black gate. Oh, and we’d better grab the ‘signpost’ to the final altar too. But even Millie Walker never managed to find those, did she?”

“I like kids who don’t waste my time.” The great sorceress grinned and tilted her wineglass. “Unfortunately, no one’s ever found the Shiki archive. I went looking myself with Rosa and Io, but no such luck.”

“Then—”

“But,” Lady Shise cut Lydia off, eyes narrowing to a piercing glare, “it is there, no doubt about that. Old Alvern records say so, and an ancient curse on the whole region leads anyone who goes there astray. The question is how to break it.”

So we’re after a ruin that eluded even the renowned Floral Heaven? That sounds like a tough nut to crack. If only we at least had more than the map to go on.

“So who is this ‘Bibliophage,’ anyway? And what makes her ‘forbidden tomes’ so important?” Lydia demanded, pouring wine into her own glass and mine.

Lady Shise twined a long lavender lock around her finger and gazed into the fireplace. “They say the Bibliophage did more to redraw the map of the continent than any other spellcaster. And...” She snapped her fingers, and a floating spell book with a mouth appeared. Despite its startling appearance, it spelled out “Please pardon my mistress” in the air toward Lydia and me.

Wh-What a courteous tome. And it writes in Old Imperial.

“This is a copy of a copy of a copy of the forbidden tome, or so my house’s elders told me,” the great sorceress continued. “They also claimed that it ‘contains magic that surpassed the gods.’”

“The gods?” I managed haltingly. “You don’t say.”

Lydia contributed a thoughtful “hmm.”

The spell book alighted on Lady Shise’s head and disappeared.

So we’re talking about the only mortal in history to perform a true Resurrection.

“Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, that was all preamble,” said Lady Shise. “The important part comes next. I’ll be blunt. Allen.”

“Yes?”

Lydia shifted her chair and pressed her shoulder against mine. I found her warmth reassuring. A strong gust rattled the windowpanes.

Lady Shise narrowed her violet eyes. “Does the Wolf of the North— Does Walter Howard really think Rosa died of natural causes?”

Her question hung in the air for a long moment.

“No.” I took just one sip of wine and dropped my gaze to the ruby liquid. “Duke Walter strongly suspects that someone assassinated her—cursed her to death. He told me that Duchess Rosa suddenly lost her command of magic while pregnant with Tina and then wasted away. Even with the resources of the Ducal House of Howard and the skill of the Walkers, he failed to uncover anything of substance.”

“And do Stella and Tina know about his suspicions?” Lady Shise asked slowly.

“They do not. Duke Walter doesn’t wish them to. To my knowledge, the only people in the kingdom to share that secret are Graham and Shelley Walker, the professor, Duke Liam Leinster, Duchess Lisa Leinster, Anna, and Lydia.”

The sisters would have to be told someday, but that wasn’t my decision to make.

Lady Shise swirled her wine. “A few years into our travels,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes, “I pulled some strings to leave her with the Coalhearts. She had a gift, and a special one. I could almost believe she had a shot at reviving the old title ‘Heaven’s Mage.’”

The ring on my right hand flashed proudly at the mention of the name that had once distinguished the world’s mightiest master of magic. I had experienced a taste of the awesome power that entailed on an islet in the Four Heroes Sea. Had Duchess Rosa really reached that level?

“But...” The great sorceress set her glass on the table with a trembling hand and closed her eyes. “But she was too kind. That girl wasn’t cut out for fighting.”

I recalled the many heavily annotated books that I had seen at the Howard mansion in the northern capital. I had no children of my own yet, but I had still been able to sense the writer’s profound love for her daughters.

“‘Stella’ and ‘Tina’ are the names of two princesses in a silly fairy tale I told little Rosa as a bedtime story,” Lady Shise confessed, opening her eyes. “They were dignified, charming, courageous, and most importantly, kind. Rosa loved stories like that. She was an ordinary little girl like you might see anywhere. That’s why I brushed off Io’s objections and pushed through the Coalheart adoption. I wanted to keep her away from the battlefield. I didn’t even try to keep in touch with her.” She hesitated. “Indirectly, it’s one of the reasons my idiot apprentice and I parted ways.”

So that’s part of what drove Lady Shise and Io apart. I would never have guessed.

The discovery must have struck a chord with Lydia as well, because she wore a conflicted expression.

Lady Shise sloshed more wine into her glass and drained it at a gulp. “She never said it in so many words, but I think Rosa wanted to free Frigid Crane in her own lifetime. And even if she couldn’t manage that, she never stopped researching, trying to work out a way to control her—all for the children she’d have someday. A real genius never stands still. I thought I understood that.” Her violet gaze bored into me, revealing a shrewdness that made me shudder. “You’ve realized too, haven’t you, Allen? Realized what Rosa kept looking for...and whose sights that landed her in.”

I drew in a breath and joined hands with the young woman sitting beside me. I felt her slender body tremble slightly and her temperature rise.

“The power of the Eight Great Elementals rivals that of the seven dragons and far surpasses mortal comprehension,” I said, enduring Lady Shise’s gaze and holding up my right hand with the ring and bracelet for her inspection. “I doubt anyone short of Linaria ‘Twin Heavens’ Etherheart or Carina Wainwright, the Black-and-White Angel, could do anything with it. Controlling it would require another great force.”

“A few possibilities suggest themselves,” Lydia added. “The eight great spells, the World Tree saplings, and the ‘field’ and ‘heart’ houses lurking in the shadows of history. Then there are the eight altars scattered all over the world, which are supposed to draw power from those black gates we still know so little about. I suppose we should include angels and devils as well. And the people worming their way into every corner of the continent, wreaking havoc to get their hands on all those things and the ancient bloodlines that can help invoke them, are...”

We nodded to each other and delivered our conclusion in unison.

“The apostles of the Church of the Holy Spirit.”

The great sorceress arched one eyebrow, and her diminutive form erupted with wrathful mana that made the lamps flicker and the fire blaze up on the hearth.

“But Io’s last words concern me,” I said. “He seemed determined to raise Duchess Rosa using the great spell Resurrection.”

“And if Black Blossom wasn’t party to her assassination,” Lydia continued, “that leaves the so-called Sage, Prime Apostle—”

“Not a chance,” Lady Shise interrupted, levitating off her sofa. “Not a chance in hell,” she repeated, running angry hands through her hair. “Ha! That oaf couldn’t have laid a finger on Rosa in a million years! Neither could the vampiress who calls herself Crescent Moon. Not even when she’d depleted her mana giving birth to a ‘white saint’ like Stella and then passing Frigid Crane on to Tina! He’s not the man I’ve been chasing all this time!” She paused a moment to catch her breath. “Maybe it was this false Saint I’ve heard so much about.”

“No,” I said, “we encountered her in the city of water—I even exchanged words with her—and her age doesn’t fit. She wasn’t masking it with a spell either. I can’t see how she could have been directly invol...”

My words trailed off into silence, provoking concern in my companions.

“Allen?”

“What’s got into you?”

Neither the false Saint nor the prime or second apostles had taken a hand in assassinating Duchess Rosa. And the third apostle was a young spearwoman, not a sorceress. I had encountered her in the city of water. The elder vampire Idris had reportedly served as fourth apostle, but if that monster had worked the curse, I would have picked up his traces in the northern capital. I hadn’t fought him to the death for nothing. The same applied to the vampiress impersonating Crescent Moon.

In which case... I withdrew Lynne’s letter for confirmation. Of course.

“Lady Shise,” I said, “how many apostles served the church during the War of the Dark Lord?”

“Huh? Eight,” came the reply. “We had a hell of a tussle with them at Blood River.”

“Eight?” Lydia repeated slowly. “Not seven?”

“The Church of the Holy Spirit branched off from a religion that worshipped the Seven Great Elementals,” the renowned sorceress said, resting her hand on the back of a free chair. “They wouldn’t have much going for them if they kept everything the same, now would they? So they got hung up on the number eight. Of course, they’ve erased so much of their own history that I doubt even the pontiff knows why anymore.”

I kept my left hand busy while I took in this pointed explanation, arranging the apostles’ names in midair.

“Putting together what we know from various battles as well as Mr. Walker’s and the professor’s intelligence work, we have the names, ranks, and general history of the apostles—all seven of them. If none of their higher-ranking members played a part in Duchess Rosa’s mysterious death, and neither did the vampiress Alicia Coalfield...” My skin crawled as I spoke. The conclusion I was about to voice filled me with dread, but I took a deep breath and got on with it.

“There must be a mastermind—one who has yet to mount the stage.”

Lady Shise’s eyes widened. Lydia stiffened beside me.

“They must be something special,” she practically spat, “if their curse killed a sorceress the great Floral Heaven rated that highly.”

The wingless demisprite’s lavender hair fluttered as she returned to the sofa. “Allen,” she said after draining a second glass of wine, “remember what you told me the other day, about Ross Howard? If you’ve heard about the Ashfield Sages and the Ashheart Moon Fiends, then you must be getting closer to the eight ‘field’ and ‘heart’ houses lurking in the shadows of history without my help.”

“Two each for ‘ash,’ ‘ether,’ ‘lock,’ and ‘coal,’ I suppose?” I hesitated. “Most of them seem to have died out. Alicia claimed that the ‘fields’ are the original houses and the ‘hearts’ are cadet branches.”

To the best of my knowledge, only the Lockhearts, a line of earls in the west of the kingdom, had survived into the present day. The other seven houses had faded into the darkness of history. The House of Coalheart had adopted Duchess Rosa, and even it remained a mystery, all but the most general facts classified as state secrets.

“You know, I could count on my fingers the people who have spoken with Twin Heavens since the age of strife and lived to tell about it,” Lady Shise said with some asperity, tilting her glass with a finger. “As far as we were able to find out, the branches started out equal, not at all what you’d expect from ordinary noble houses. They each had a different role assigned to them, and that was all. The passing years—or centuries—must have warped that relationship.”

Lydia and I exchanged looks.

“What roles?”

“Assigned by whom?”

Lady Shise rubbed her forehead in vexation. “You’ve been to the Nitti archive in the old part of the city of water, haven’t you? I found a scrawled gripe about the Lockfields stuck between the pages of an old book there. It called them ‘a pack of rotten bloodhounds.’”

I can’t believe we’ve lost such a valuable document. Perhaps the church had more reasons than the obvious for attacking us in that archive.

“The freak who set up the Star Oath after the gods passed away might have loved mortals but sure didn’t trust them.” Lady Shise undid the tie holding back her hair and started toying with it. “So they assigned secret roles to the ‘fields’ and the ‘hearts’—all while choosing the Etherhearts for one of the eight grand dukedoms. Of course, I’m only telling you what I heard from Rosa.”

She must mean Ross Howard’s teacher, who led the Lady of Lightning and the Blue Rose—founders of the Houses of Alvern and Wainwright, respectively—and saved the world.

“So what was the Etherhearts’ ‘secret role’?” Lydia asked, drumming her fingers on the table.

“Surveillance,” came the immediate answer. Lady Shise tried to smile but only managed a grimace. “In the age of gods, ice was an unmitigated terror that came out of the far north. According to demisprite legends our elders still keep secret, mortalkind nearly went extinct more than once. You can command silver-snow, Allen, so you must have some idea. It’s essentially an infinitesimal fragment of power from a much greater horror that Twin Heavens’ kid sister reworked for her own use.”

“I concur,” I said. Nearly a year ago, Tina had called on Frigid Crane to freeze the supreme spell Blizzard Wolf in a mock duel with Duke Walter. No power within reason could have done that. I still didn’t believe that Lena was evil. And yet...

Lady Shise closed her eyes, maintaining a pensive silence. “I don’t know what the Frigid Crane is,” she said at last. “Little Rosa didn’t know either. But I can tell her power rivals the Seven Great Elementals, who derive from the divine staff. It could kill the planet if misused. That said, not many people would want that or be able to survive it.”

The logs on the hearth collapsed completely, clattering down in a puff of flame and ash.

“One thing we do know: Whoever is behind all this must come from one of the ‘ash’ houses, although both of those supposedly died out after the age of strife five hundred years ago. They associated with the great elementals Tenebrous Wolf, Stone Serpent...and Tempest Kingfisher. And at least one of them is still around, keeping to the deepest shadows and still trying to carry out their role.”

Legend had it that a traveler had roamed the continent with Tempest Kingfisher, healing the scars of war wherever they went. The fairy tales portrayed them as a most compassionate figure.

Lady Shise raised the wine bottle to her lips and took a pull. “I still can’t see them getting the better of Rosa, though,” she said, wiping her mouth. “Except she didn’t count on Stella being born a saint. That wore her down, since she couldn’t pass on Frigid Crane. And Tina being a cursed child must have put an extra strain on her too. Her mana was almost depleted, and that’s when they struck. It took a string of unlikely coincidences! Too much bad luck for it to have been just...the way the world turns.”

Bitter sobs dominated the room for a while after that. I felt a pang in my chest and put an arm around Lydia’s shoulder in spite of myself. Even so, I needed to ask.

“Lady Shise, if I may.”

“What is a ‘saint,’ anyway?” Lydia finished for me. “It looks like we’ll have to fight one sooner or later. And they come in ‘white’ and ‘black,’ don’t they? What does that mean?”

The great sorceress wiped her tears with her fingers and sat up on her sofa, setting the wine bottle on the table. “According to tradition, a saint is ‘one who can conditionally exercise divine power’ in our godless age. I don’t know whether I believe it, but they say a ‘white’ saint can ‘restore the life of another in exchange for her own,’ but only once. They’re also called ‘angels.’ I guess Rosa couldn’t pass Frigid Crane on to Stella because she was already too full with whatever makes that possible.” She paused. “As for the ‘black’ saints, they’re what becomes of girls who couldn’t become the other kind. Cursed children are an early stage in the transformation. The elders feared them as ‘an everlasting curse that a single witch laid on all of mortalkind.’”

Lydia and I couldn’t help grimacing. I would hesitate to share this revelation with Stella and Tina. So, apparently, would Lady Shise.

“Talk it over with the Wolf of the North. And I mean really talk,” she said, gathering up her hair and rebinding it. That done, she recorked the wine bottle and lowered her gaze. “I suspect that ‘saints’ were artificially created sometime around when the age of gods ended. The altars could have made it possible. Not to mention, every country under the sun went wild with experiments they can’t admit to now during the War of the Dark Lord—and they didn’t all stop when it ended. I doubt mortal nature has changed much since however many thousands of years ago. So don’t breathe a word of this to anyone you can’t trust completely. It’s still taboo in the whole west of the continent.”

Her warning delivered, Lady Shise slipped back into her cape. “Now, I’m off to bed,” she said, turning to leave with the not-quite-empty bottle. “If you want to know more, ask the emperor tomorrow.”

“Thank you. I will.” I rose and bowed deeply to her diminutive back.

Scattered puzzle pieces of fact were at last, slowly but surely, starting to form a picture. I could no longer avoid another clash with the Church of the Holy Spirit—or with Zel.

“One last thing, Shise,” Lydia said sharply as soon as I raised my head. “What did this Apostate of the Great Moon you’ve been chasing do?”

The great sorceress stopped with her hand on the door. “He killed my better half and my children,” she answered over her shoulder, then left without bothering to close the door. There had been pools of darkness in her eyes.

I stood stock-still.

“It’ll be all right,” Lydia assured me, hugging my left arm. Then she moved in front of me and closed her eyes as if to pray. “No matter who we’re up against, you’ll always have me at your side, and I’ll always have you at mine. So we’ve got nothing to fear. Am I wrong?”

“No,” I said slowly, touching my forehead to hers, “you’re right. How could I have forgotten? Thank you, Lydia.”

It’s all right. I’m not alone.

I opened my eyes and made to give the disgruntled lady a shove. “Now, we need to be up bright and early tomorrow, so you’d better get back to your own—”

“I’m spending tonight with you.”

I didn’t get to finish my sentence. The scarlet-haired girl flung herself onto the bed and curled up in the blankets.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “Lydia—”

“I’m! Sleeping! Here!”

Nothing could budge her once she dug her heels in like this. Still, I was as much a man as the next, and sharing a bed had implications. Besides which, I genuinely feared for my life if Tina and company caught us in the morning.

I was still agonizing when a gaggle of children in matching nightgowns—although each had her own color—trotted past me and hopped into bed.

“Allen, I’m sleepy,” whined Atra.

“Go beddy-bye,” mumbled Lia.

“Do you want me to catch a chill?” added Lena.

All three of them should already have been sound asleep in another room. But no sooner had they shut their mouths than their ears, tails, and feathers drooped, and their voices gave way to rhythmic breathing. Lydia and I burst out laughing at the same moment.

I quietly closed the door, took a spare blanket from a shelf, and spread it over the children in the center of the bed. Then I tenderly stroked the noblewoman’s scarlet hair and patted the girls’ heads before lying down on the left side myself and extinguishing the mana lamp.

“Good night, Lydia.” I smiled at the young woman eyeing me in the moonlight. “Try to get up on your own tomorrow.”

“Good night, Allen,” she replied. “And no. Wake me gently.”

✽

I could discern no marks of the recent disaster as I passed through the front gates of the palace. No doubt the Yustinian Empire had taken steps to impress its greatness on visiting dignitaries. Columns, floor, and ceiling were decorated in grand style, while portraits of past emperors and magnificent furnishings lined the walls—a far cry from the rear escape route I had taken on my last visit. A great number of imposing knights guarded the way.

I might have felt even more nervous in a formal suit, especially without the children to relieve the tension—Atra, Lia, and Lena had stayed behind to help mind the old church. At the same time, I still struggled to credit the extraordinary invitation that the emperor himself had extended to me: “Wear your usual clothes if you like. We also grant you leave to bear arms in our presence.”

“So this is the formal approach,” I mused, drifting away from the young male knight guiding us and touching a nearby stone column. “Oh, could these designs represent spell formul— Ah!”

A surprise yank on my coat sleeve sent me reeling. I turned to find Tina and Caren in their Royal Academy uniforms; Stella in her dashing white military uniform, a wand and rapier at her sides; and Lily, wearing her long skirt and her exotic jacket with its interlocking arrow pattern, all giving me bone-chilling smiles.

“Don’t dillydally!” came the chorus.

“Oh, all right,” I sighed. They had been awfully harsh with me all morning, although discovering Lydia and the children asleep in my bed probably went some way toward explaining that. But even the scarlet-haired noblewoman, who wore one of her red-and-white sword-fighting outfits and carried the enchanted blade Cresset Fox at her side as though it were her natural right, had turned against me.

“Stop being a sore loser,” she snapped, casually straightening my collar. “The next time you drag your feet, I’ll slash you, burn you, and then slash you some more.”

“B-But really, I—”

“You’re today’s guest of honor. I’m just tagging along,” Caren cut in with the triumphant look of a girl about to go down in history as one of the few beastfolk ever to enter this palace by formal invitation.

“I’d like to think that sisters tormenting their brothers isn’t the way of the world.” I shrugged and continued down the corridor. I could hear the girls chuckling to themselves behind me.

Before long, a pair of stone double doors loomed into view. Our guide halted and held up a small orb. Spell formulae raced across the austere stone surfaces, which began to grate open.

I...I see they go in for pomp and circumstance.

“Stella,” Lydia said.

“Of course,” Stella replied. And while I got cold feet, the two noblewomen swept past me into the hall, their scarlet and platinum hair gleaming.

I felt a hand on each shoulder.

“Come on, Allen. Now it’s your turn,” said the maid, and she wasn’t alone. Tina and Caren had seized my other arm.

“Sir.”

“What are you waiting for?”

I had nowhere to run. I screwed up my courage and stepped over the threshold.

Before a towering stained glass image of a sharpshooter readying a bow and arrow, in an audience chamber bathed in dazzling sunbeams, a short row of men and women I took for civil and military officials awaited us. A grand throne reposed on a dais at the far end of the hall. Sir Carl, who had fought against Io, and a sober-looking young sorcerer were the only guards in evidence. The numbers and security arrangements suggested near absolute secrecy.

Rolling my eyes at the professor, who was chatting merrily with a robust military man, I advanced along the red carpet in the center of the hall. Lydia and Stella walked in the lead. Tina and Caren guarded our flanks. Lily brought up the rear. Each one seemed to know her part, despite their vociferous argument that morning. What was it with girls?

The high-pitched note of a bell pierced the air, and at once Carl and the officials stood straighter. The doors at the far end of the hall swung open, and an old man—Emperor Yuri Yustin—emerged, leaning feebly on an enchanted sword in place of a walking stick while a blonde girl in a military uniform hovered anxiously behind him.

“That’s Yana,” Lydia informed me via wind magic. “The sorcerer is Huss Saxe.”

So that’s the future empress and her trusty aide-de-camp.

The old emperor, deeply wounded by the loss of his own right-hand man, somehow managed to lower himself onto the throne.

“Welcome,” he said, “Allen Alvern, the Shooting Star of the wolf clan of the eastern capital.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

H-How does he already know that Alice granted me her house name? Wait, don’t tell me...

I shot a reproachful glare at the professor. He pointedly studied his shoes.

Y-You’ll pay for this! I don’t care how much I learned from you! I’ll carry this grudge to my dying day!

The emperor, who had visibly lost weight in the past few days, noticed our exchange and seemed to find it funny. “Forgive our rather undignified appearance,” he said. “Lady Stella has graciously assisted in our treatment, but we remain less than the picture of health. Nevertheless, we wished to extend our thanks to you personally before you return to your own land. Yana, if you would.”

“Yes, grandfather.” The princess had been waiting beside the throne. Now she clapped her hands, and a group of soldiers carried in a luxurious sofa, which they placed in the hall.

Surely this was meant to be a formal audience?

Seeing my confusion, the old emperor languidly waved for me to be seated. When I bowed slightly and complied, Tina and Caren immediately took the places on either side of me. Lydia, Stella, and Lily moved behind the sofa and remained standing. They were to act as bodyguards.

“Words cannot express our gratitude to you for slaying the dreaded Black Blossom, saving numerous residents of our capital along with our empire itself. Though little enough time remains to us, we shall remember our debt to you for so long as we shall live.”

With those words, Emperor Yuri Yustin bowed to me. You could have cut the tension with a knife. The absolute ruler of the empire had lowered his head to a wolf-clan foundling. And he had done so on the record, during a formal appearance.

This will floor the beastfolk chieftains back in the eastern capital if they ever find out.

I slowly shook my head, fighting back the beginnings of heartburn. “If I may, Your Imperial Majesty, I could not have done these things alone. My sister, Caren, and Their Highnesses Lady Tina Howard and Lady Lily Leinster fought alongside me. Their Highnesses Lady Lydia Leinster and Lady Stella Howard responded swiftly to the threat outside the palace. That the Hero and Floral Heaven rendered indispensable assistance goes without saying. And above all...” I spoke clearly, my eyes on Castle Breaker, the sword of the elderly grand marshal who had fallen fighting to hold Io back. “I do not believe that we could have succeeded if not for the valiant efforts of Grand Marshal Moss Saxe.”

For the first time that day, the emperor smiled. “We see.”

The military man who had been speaking with the professor swayed unsteadily, and tears formed in Huss Saxe’s eyes. The grand marshal had been well-beloved.

“Nevertheless, we and our empire owe you a great debt. We would not put it past Moss to return and grumble in our ear night after night should we send you home empty-handed. Name your desire, and we shall do all in our power to grant it,” the old emperor demanded with a touch of his former vigor.

I looked to the girls on either side of me for rescue, only to find them oho-ing with a delight I did not share. The trio behind me seemed equally pleased, although they didn’t voice the feeling.

Oh dear.

“My sincere and humble apologies, sire, but I can think of no—”

Stella’s and Lily’s dainty hands clamped over my mouth before I could complete the refusal. Lydia took the opportunity to speak for me, and with none of my reticence.

“I assume that the empire has conducted its own surveys of Shiki. Would you give us a copy of the report?”

“Consider it done,” the emperor replied. “But that region is one great expanse of impenetrable forest. There is no archive to be found there. Though the name lives on in the legend of our ancestor the Star Shooter, only small tribes of hunters call it home. You will learn nothing more interesting from our reports.”

“That’s fine,” Lydia said. “Oh, and may we have your documents on the Eight Great Elementals and the Eight Heresies as well?”

“Certainly.”

And just like that, it was settled. Yes, we did need those documents, but still.

I freed myself from the grip of the saint and the maid. “Th-Thank you, sire,” I said, bowing and gasping for air. “Such a generous reward more than compensates—”

“Now, name your next desire,” the emperor interrupted, evidently enjoying himself.

Of course. How could I forget his long acquaintance with the professor and Mr. Walker? I doubt he’ll relent until I actually propose something.

I considered, then turned left and winked at my sister. “Can you think of anything, Caren?”

“Wh-What?!” she squeaked. “Why are you asking me now?!”

“A good brother never misses a chance to elevate his sister,” I told her. “I believe that’s the way of the world.”

“Th-There’s no such law in nature! You have it backward!” Caren’s ears and tail were standing on end, but she must have realized I was serious, because she continued in a calmer tone. “Honestly, I can’t believe you’re so predictable. Tina, Lydia, Stella, Lily.”

The response came in a chorus.

“Ready!”

“I have an idea.”

“Shall we go with plan A, then?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Caren sighed and cast a ward of silence, and the girls started deliberating behind the sofa.

What did she mean, “predictable”?

The ward soon lifted, and Caren addressed the enthroned emperor with dignity.

“In that case, I request that the empire initiate formal peace negotiations with the Lalannoy Republic.”

The officials gasped, dumbfounded. Even Princess Yana covered her mouth, visibly shaken.

“Even the least of the church’s apostles can equal an army,” Stella added regardless. “And the greatest of them... I shudder to think. This is no time for great nations to vie among themselves. It is, I believe, a time to close the book on a century of warfare.”

A pall of silence fell. According to the professor, the empire had already learned of Heaven’s Sword’s disappearance and Heaven’s Sage’s collapse. Yet never before had there been such an opportunity to make peace.

The old emperor took several breaths before making his will known.

“Very well. We shall approach Addison.”

“Sire!”

“No!”

“A truce, perhaps, but a peace treaty would—”

“Be silent! You stand in the imperial presence,” Princess Yana barked at the flustered ministers. She must have been younger than I was, yet she projected an air of authority.

The old emperor leaned back on his throne and closed his eyes. “However, the objections are not groundless. We doubt very much that they will accept. We have all shed too much blood.”

“With Your Imperial Majesty’s permission, I will write to Marquess Oswald Addison as well,” I said. “Recent events have also taken a grievous toll on the republic. I do not believe that it will mistake its true enemy.”

The emperor considered. “Do as you see fit.”

Oh dear. I just increased my workload again. And unlike Teto, I really am just a normal person. Not that I can bring myself to complain when I see Caren and Stella holding hands like that. Anyway, at least that’s the audience over wi—

Princess Yana cleared her throat. A sadistic glint, very much like the emperor’s, entered her eyes. “With all due respect, I do not believe that formal peace between the empire and the republic would constitute a reward, given that it in no way benefits Mr. Allen. What do you think, Lady Lydia?”

“I quite agree, Yana,” Lydia replied. “Now stop wasting our time and ask for something more.”

Won’t...won’t anyone stand up for me?

My gaze met the smiling maid’s. My mind went to our recent stroll through the imperial capital.

“Allen? Is there something on my face?” She patted her cheeks and her floral hair clip, looking confused.

I have it.

Cheerfully, I turned to my erstwhile mentor, who fancied himself a mere observer to the proceedings. “Professor, you intend to remain in this city for some time, do you not?”

“Hmm? Yes, I do. Someone will need to serve as a point of contact here while Graham is in Lalannoy.” The professor hesitated. “Allen, what has you looking so devious?”

“Thank you. That’s a load off my mind,” I said, ignoring his question. My grin broadened as I turned to the emperor. “Sire, a few days ago, I accompanied Lady Lily Leinster on a stroll through your capital, and I could not help noticing a splendid station under construction. Given its location, may I take it that you intend to lay southbound tracks?”

“Indeed,” came the reply, “although we still lag behind your homeland in such projects.”

I thought as much. Felicia, I might have just found your new markets and new jobs, I thought, recalling the bespectacled girl who sent me daily letters from the royal capital.

“In that case,” I said, “may I request that you lay those tracks as far as the old capital of Ohwin in Galois on the Wainwright Kingdom’s northern frontier, with future extensions to the northern capital via Meer and Seesehr?”

Wails of a different sort than the ones my request for peace had drawn promptly filled the audience chamber.

“Mr. Allen!” cried the princess, still hovering by the old emperor’s side. “The idea is beyond preposterous! It—”

“Enough, Yana. Let us hear him out.”

I shot a grateful look at the canny emperor who, alongside the late grand marshal, had rebuilt an empire ravaged by a succession of upheavals. “If a train line linked this city to the northern capital,” I began, projecting a map of the west of the continent into the air and drawing gasps from the officials, “rails would stretch from the Yustinian Empire in the north to Sets, capital of the Principality of Atlas, in the south, where an extension is currently under construction. By transferring at the royal capital, a traveler could reach the eastern and western capitals as well. A range of problems will no doubt arise, and not only on the military and diplomatic fronts, but so will immense benefits. Fostering mutual understanding will lead to increased air traffic from business such as our griffin and wyvern mail as well.”

All other voices faded as I spoke. Beside me, Tina’s swaying hair betrayed her excitement.

“If you hesitate to invest in laying track or constructing trains domestically,” I continued, dismissing my map, “may I suggest contracting to a business established by the Ducal Houses of Leinster and Howard—Felicia & Co.? I would be most grateful.”

The audience chamber had fallen totally silent. Confusion and consternation ruled the day.

“Allen,” the professor grumbled at me via wind magic, “I would like to retire one of these days.”

I ignored him.

Well, you won’t. I insist you keep working—more than I do, at least.

I was still drunk on my petty victory when Lydia placed her hand on my left shoulder. “Correction.”

Tina rose proudly from her seat. “It’s ‘Allen & Co.’!”

N-No! My scheme to rename the business via the official record, ruined!

“I’ll inform Felicia at once,” Caren assured me, cutting off my retreat.

“Really, Mr. Allen,” added Stella, “it’s high time you made your peace with reality.”

Lily giggled. “Now I can count that train station as an extra special memory.”

I could leave the maid to her own devices. I would have hated to spoil her fun.

An enchanted blade rang hard and clear on the stone floor.

“We shall take the matter under advisement,” said the emperor. “We shall conduct negotiations through Yana, and Huss shall serve as her assistant.”

“G-Grandfather?!”

“Yes, sire.”

“We hear that you depart tomorrow,” the emperor continued, disregarding the flustered princess. “We shall have those reports delivered to you this evening. Now, as for the affair of Lord Arthur and Lady Elna Lothringen...”

“Consider it dealt with, sire,” I replied. “I will endeavor to resolve matters before the lady awakens.”

Anyone could see that the “Dark Lord’s mana” left at the scene of Arthur’s disappearance was a spark that could ignite an inferno. I needed to get in touch with Margrave Solnhofen through Felicia and pick the Dark Lord Rill’s brain as soon as possible.

A look of relief spread over the grieving emperor’s face. “That is all. We thank you all for attending on us here.” He rose from his throne. “Champions of a new era, we pray that the Star Shooter will watch over your travels.”

✽

“There. That ought to do it. Thank you for your cooperation,” I said, gently rubbing the griffin’s neck now that I had finished lashing the saddle and luggage into place. The mighty and widely feared monster bent down and cooed appreciatively, and its nearby fellows raised answering cries. A surge of mana scattered petals from the old church garden.

From the Lalannoy Republic, we had flown to the Yustinian Empire. Now we were bound for the kingdom’s northern frontier. I would need to thank the president of the Skyhawk Company for lending us the creatures once we returned to the royal capital.

The children looked adorable in their matching cloaks.

“Atra, Lia, we’re going to ride the griffins again. Keep an eye on Lena for me, will you?” I said, giving their little heads a pat, pat, pat.

“Ride with Allen!” crowed Atra.

“Leave it to Lia!” cheered her companion.

“You seem to have developed strange misapprehensions about me,” said Lena. “What do you take me fo— U-Unhand me! Let go this instant!”

A chuckle at their antics escaped me as I bowed to the dark-haired, dark-skinned second-in-command of the Leinster Maid Corps, who had arrived to reinforce us only the previous night. “I’m sorry to have called you up so suddenly, Romy. Please look after the children.”

“You may depend upon it, Mr. Allen,” she replied.

“And upon us!” the other maids chorused and gleefully set about caring for the trio. Luce, the white griffin who had once carried the legendary Shooting Star, took a moment out of blissful sunbathing to raise a long neck and contribute a happy cry.

Hmm... Mina Walker and the other Howard maids might be gnashing their teeth right about now. They’re all stuck up in the sky on their own griffins, securing our perimeter.

I grinned in spite of myself and approached my former teacher, who had come to see us off. “Till next time, Professor. I’m relying on you to deal with all the tedious slog—ahem, conduct negotiations of the utmost importance.”

“You’d better not waste any time sending me assistants, Allen. But be that as it may...”

I nodded and cast a ward of silence.

“Walter and Letty are campaigning on the eastern border,” the professor whispered in my ear. “Report the particulars to me as soon as word of them reaches the northern capital. And think of some way to sort out the Lady Elna situation as quickly as you possibly can. Romy tells me that the matter is becoming more urgent than even we feared.”

“I’ll get in touch with Felicia,” I whispered back. “We’ll be able to telephone from the northern capital.”

“I’m sorry to put everything on your shoulders, but I am counting on you.” He clapped me on the back with surprising force. When all was said and done, Lydia, our old underclassmen, and I owed a lot to this man. Besides which, Arthur and Lady Elna were my comrades in arms. I would do everything in my power.

I dispelled my ward just as a petite, chestnut-haired woman before the church doors brought her hands together.

“Gather around, my ladies,” said Anna, head maid to the Ducal House of Leinster. “The fateful moment has finally arrived.”

Tina, Stella, Caren, Lydia, and Lily all tensed. Each one had already completed her own travel preparations.

“Mr. Allen’s black griffin can carry him, Miss Atra, Miss Lia, and only one other person,” Anna explained, holding up her index finger. “It is therefore my duty to present what I believe to be the most equitable solution: the Return of the Lottery without Honor or Mercy! And Lily is disqualified. As a maid, she has vital guard duties to perform.”

“N-No!” wailed the maid in question as her knees buckled and she slumped to the ground. She’d had her eager heart set on those lots.

The remaining four spared not a glance for their fallen rival. They had their own battle to prepare for.

Tina took deep breaths, in and out, in and out. “Come on, me. Believe in yourself!”

“You’ll be fine. You can do this, Stella,” her sister murmured. “I know you can draw that winning lot.”

“No one can hold a candle to me now,” my sister told herself. “Allen and I are both Alverns.”

“You’ve had your turn, Caren,” Lydia snapped. “Make way for your sister-in-law!”

Couldn’t they simply, you know, take turns? I thought, although I knew better than to suggest it out loud.

Anna produced lots, seemingly from thin air, and proffered them to the girls. “Be my guests!”

Four cries rang out. Five hands darted and drew lots in almost perfect unison.

“Oh? It appears I’ve won.” Lena chuckled smugly. No one had noticed her approach, but she hovered, holding her paper lot aloft and displaying the star mark on its end. Her long azure hair and feathers vibrated in unmistakable delight.

“Lena strong!” Lia cheered, matched by a musical yelp from Atra. They jumped up and down even as Romy and Luce pampered them.

“Yes, I am strong. And what else? Shower me with praises!” The great elemental flew to her companions, flapping her feathery hair like wings.

H-How does she do that? It throws everything I thought I knew about magic into question.

Then the girls got over their shock and rounded on me.

“Sir...”

“Mr. Allen...”

“Allen...”

“Really?”

“I...I don’t see how this could possibly be my fault,” I told the sore losers. Anna, meanwhile, readied a video orb and whistled.

Th-This was deliberate! It must have been!

I was running out of options when the great sorceress alighted in the garden, wearing her uniform and beret. “Tina, Stella.”

“Lady Shise!” The Howard sisters’ frowns turned upside down as they threw their arms around their mother’s teacher.

“You’ll be staying in the imperial capital for the time being, won’t you?” asked one.

“May we write to you?” added the other.

“Of course,” said Lady Shise. “Let me know the moment you have any complaints about a certain wolf with a knack for magic. I’ll teach him a lesson.”

“We will!” came the double reply.

I supposed that I ought to have considered it a heartwarming scene, despite the sense of personal danger it inspired in me.

Lily revived with the help of Caren and Lydia prodding her cheeks. She was tracing letters on my back when Lady Shise’s stern gaze bored into me.

“A word of warning, Allen,” she said. “Like it or not, you’ll come face-to-face with your destiny soon—your fate as the last living key. But don’t try to take it all on yourself. Turning to others for help is nothing to be ashamed of. Make your kindness and your name the only ways you take after Allen the Shooting Star.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I won’t forget your advice.”

The old me would have tried to sort things out alone. He would have been too afraid to show weakness. But now...

“Mm-hmm. My Allen will do fine.”

I yelped. “A-Alice?”

To general consternation, the blonde Hero caught me in a hug. I lowered myself, and she wrapped her arms around my head. “Thanks for all the cheesecake.” She grinned. “Now I’m doubly invincible. Ha!”

“Mind that you don’t eat too much at once.”

With the aid of Stella, Lily, Lydia, Caren, and the maids, I had spent the past few days baking more cheesecakes than I could count. The old church’s icebox was full to bursting with them.

Alice blinked, profoundly bewildered. “But they taste so good.”

Oh dear. Hardly a reassuring response. I can’t help remembering our meeting in the royal capital, when she kept eating fruit tarts until I stopped her. I’d better put in a word.

“Lady Aurelia, would you mind limiting her to snack times?”

“No, I quite understand,” replied the silent beauty who hung back, dressed for a sword fight.

“My Allen has turned cruel.” Alice reeled in shock.

Tina seized the opportunity to squeeze between us. “Mr. Allen is mine, comrade! You can’t have him!”

Do my ears deceive me, or did she just make a rather alarming claim? I’d better confiscate those video orbs from Anna and her maids—and from Mina and her suspiciously low-flying force—before it makes its way back to Duke Walter.

Alice planted a dainty finger on her chin and cocked her head in thought. “Want to share?”

“Wh-What? You mean... I never thought of that.” Tina’s blush didn’t stop at her face. Her whole head and neck flushed bright red, practically steaming.

“T-Tina, no!” Stella shouted in a panic.

Caren sighed at her friend. “You should have taught her better than that.”

“Hmm...” murmured Lily. “I think I could live with that.”

Feathers of black flame filled the air. “Do you have a death wish, pint-sized Hero?” Lydia snapped, scowling and already gripping the hilt of her sword.

The Hero was unfazed. “You want to point a sword at me now, scarlet crybaby? Really?”

“Wh-What makes you so sure of yourself?” Lydia hesitated, wary of this newfound hauteur.

Alice practically skipped behind me, poked her head out from behind my legs, and stuck out her tongue. “Every Alvern needs the grand duchess’s permission to marry. Not even the Royal House of Wainwright or their Four Great Ducal Houses can change that. If you pick a fight with me... I think you can guess.”

The fiery plumes vanished. All six girls froze. Then a great vortex of inky mana sent shudders through air and earth alike.

“Mm-hmm.” Alice gave several satisfied nods and planted her hands on her hips. “Kidding.”

The mana lifted like a fog.

“Y-You’ve got some nerve,” Lydia grumbled, wiping cold sweat from her brow while the others breathed sighs of relief. The Hero could be surprisingly playful when she felt like it, although I didn’t think my heart could take many more of her jokes.

“Allen, your cheek,” Alice said, tugging on my sleeve.

“What about it?” I asked, obediently bending down.

Strangled cries rang out as, casually, without the least affectation, Alice pressed her lips to my cheek.

“For good luck,” the platinum-blonde Hero—my senior, lest I forget—said gently, the picture of calm. “Now you’ve got nothing to fear from anyone. But take care. I doubt the false Saint has ‘fair and square’ anywhere in her dictionary.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I promise we’ll meet again, Alice. Take good care of yourself. And I’ll borrow Bright Night for now, but I will return it the next time I see you.”

The black griffins rose and started preparing for flight. It was time to go. I shot a look at my sullen companions, signaling them to mount.

The kindhearted young woman stood on tiptoe and pressed her little head against me. “Bright Night is yours now. You can use it to lock the Shiki archive if you find it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, almost a prayer. “I doubt there’s ever been another boy who worries about the Hero like you do.”

Alice slowly pulled away from me and fell back beside Lady Aurelia and Luce. A black griffin walked up to me with the children on its back. I leapt astride and took the reins.

“Allen!” Lady Shise shouted from below, holding on to her beret. “Rosa might have found some kind of clue to the Shiki archive! She kept a diary the whole time we traveled together! Look for it in the northern capital!”

“I will!” I hollered back. “And I’ll keep you informed, even if we don’t find the archive of the Bibliophage’s tome! Please keep an eye on Alice and the professor for me!”

The great sorceress thumped her chest and held her left hand high. A far-reaching spell I didn’t recognize called up a powerful wind, and the black griffins started taking off.

“Let’s go, sir! To the northern capital! I just know mother will show us the way!” Tina called, holding out her right hand to me while she clung to Stella’s back with her left. Her snow-white ribbon and the orb on her rod emitted a faint glow.

I told the children clinging to my sides and back to “hang on tight” and pulled the reins. With mighty wingbeats, the black griffin launched itself skyward and soared due south. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the old church standing patiently below and the kind Hero with her companions before it, waving to us until they vanished from sight.

Till next time. And I promise there will be one.

With a brisk wind at our backs, we kept gaining speed.

Off to the good old northern capital!

✽

“Then the Dark Lord has truly taken action herself?”

“And she actually proposed a parley?”

“Could she be hoping to catch us unawares?”

“We’ve had no reports of troops massing at Blood River.”

“But that monster could overrun the front lines alone.”

Ripples of consternation spread through a chamber at Starsong Hall, revered as the oldest building in the Wainwright Kingdom’s western capital, heart of a land at one with its forests. I, Solos, Margrave Solnhofen and former member of the Shooting Star Brigade, remained on one knee after finishing my report, my nerves expressing themselves in a cold sweat. On a dais several tiers above me, in ancient chairs supposedly carved from dead boughs of the Great Tree, sat the renowned elders of the west. They came from diverse peoples—elves, dwarves, demisprites, giants, and even beastfolk of the lion clan—but every one had braved the world’s perils since before the War of the Dark Lord and done inestimable service to their kind. In the west, they surpassed even the Ducal House of Lebufera in prestige, dictating the terms of the secret pact we were all duty bound to uphold. And now we needed to convince them to listen to us—and to release information concerning the great elementals and great spells.

The incidents that the Church of the Holy Spirit had caused in so many lands had become impossible to ignore. If we left them unchecked, they would wreak havoc on the west of the continent. The calamity, in whatever form it took, would reach the kingdom and, ultimately, the western capital. We needed answers—answers that would satisfy the Brain of the Lady of the Sword, the new Shooting Star whom even my old superior, Duchess Emerita Leticia Lebufera, had given her seal of approval. I had no doubt that a well-informed Allen would secure victory. And once I fulfilled my private agreement with Felicia Fosse, I would be free to immerse myself in business in the peaceful days to come.

I darted a glance at the handsome elf making obeisance beside me. Surely the moment had arrived.

“With all due respect, most venerable elders,” said Duke Leo Lebufera, “the time for debate has passed. What we need now is action.”

The murmur of voices grew. The dais creaked. Old the elders might have been, but the mana each and every one possessed was potency itself. If my erstwhile superior had been there, she would have resorted to a show of force at once. Alas, we had only memories of the beautiful Emerald Gale. The latest news placed her on the eastern border, where she had just routed the Knights of the Holy Spirit.

“The Brain of the Lady of the Sword—Allen of the eastern capital’s wolf clan, successor to our great benefactor the Shooting Star—has already met the Dark Lord personally and fought alongside her in the workshop city of Tabatha, capital of the Lalannoy Republic,” the duke continued, raising his head and snapping me out of my reverie. “Together they slew not only an ice wyrm but a false goddess. Reports claim that they have sealed a bond of friendship, and that the Dark Lord named Lord Solos Solnhofen her intermediary for all future communication.”

Silence filled the chamber. I risked a glance at the elders’ reactions and found them speechless. I could not blame them. If true, Allen’s exploits had no equal short of the previous Shooting Star or perhaps even the legendary Fire Fiend, also called Twin Heavens.

“Events have begun to move after two centuries of stagnation! What reason have we to hesitate?!” demanded Duke Leo. A taste of war in the eastern uprising had added force to his character.

“The former officers of the Shooting Star Brigade and the Archmage Rodde Foudre, headmaster of the Royal Academy, have already given their approval. The Tijerinas, who possess their own means of contacting the demonfolk, stand ready as well,” I added, mentally griping.

Good grief! The headmaster and Margrave Tijerina have some excuse, but how could the squadron leaders let the promises they made Allen in the eastern capital keep them from being here?! What monstrosity of a weapon do they mean to forge in the royal capital?

“According to Allen’s letters,” I continued, “Lady Elna Lothringen of Lalannoy, called ‘Heaven’s Sage,’ has fallen into a precarious state, and only with the Dark Lord’s cooperation can he prevent disaster. And as I touched on earlier, the military situation will permit no hesitation in our response to the Church of the Holy Spirit. I beg you to reveal the information we request!”

The elders conferred under a ward of silence, seeming greatly disturbed. Time wore on. Then, at last, the ward lifted.

“Very well,” said one. “We approve contact with the Dark Lord.”

“But revealing information is another matter,” added a second. “Where would the long-lived races be without our secret accords?”

“We would eventually succumb to the humans’ sheer numbers,” clarified a third.

I suppose a life of isolation will dull anyone’s senses, even the best of us. Oh, to the devils with it! “When in doubt, act and act boldly,” as the Emerald Gale says.

“This is a matter of the utmost secrecy...” I said, forcing the words out with my diaphragm. The elders’ gazes focused on me, but I pressed on without flinching. “But Allen already commands the loyalty of three great elementals—including the Frigid Crane told of in legends from the age of gods. He is a man of extraordinary skill! Sooner or later, he will discover the knowledge we deem taboo for himself. The times are changing, and a great shift has begun.”

A silence, heavier and graver even than the last, pervaded the room.

Felicia, I believe I’ll be able to honor our agreement.

Duke Leo delivered the final push.

“Most venerable elders, please grant us the benefit of your wisdom when we need it most. You have maintained your silence concerning the great elementals and the great spells since the War of the Dark Lord. Tell us of them now, and of magic’s slow decline. Do so, and you have my word that the new Shooting Star will light our way as his namesake did two centuries ago!”

Chapter 2

The castle that contained a city—the Holy Citadel, headquarters of the Knights of the Holy Spirit—lay sunken in a sea of morning mist. I could just barely make out the eight distinctive, upthrust bastions but not the great central cathedral, said to be second in scale only to the pontiff’s own see. I couldn’t sense much mana either. The place was quiet.

“Looks like they won’t be coming out today,” I muttered to myself—Gil Algren, stand-in for Duke Algren, longtime protector of the east—brushing dew from my violet-streaked blond hair and military uniform. “I’m really not in the mood for a siege.”

What would Allen do?

About two weeks ago, a border skirmish with the Knights of the Holy Spirit had developed into a proper battle, with both sides committing tens of thousands of troops. In the end, the kingdom had trounced them. Unbelievably, not one of our soldiers had died, and I could count our casualties on my fingers. With strength to spare, we had launched a massive follow-up strike and ended up within spitting distance of enemy headquarters.

I had no suspicions about our victory. The undefeated Wolf of the North had arrayed our forces, and the Emerald Gale, a living legend, had led the charge. For the rest, we had a star-studded lineup of the bravest, fiercest, and craftiest officers that the kingdom’s noble houses could offer. Supply lines had been my only cause for concern, but the “Mastermind” had overseen our logistics from all the way in the northern capital with such scary efficiency that we never lacked for anything. Of course we’d won a total victory, even with a kid like me as supreme commander in name only.

But even so, the knights had gone down way too easily. I’d figured on drawing out an apostle or two. Where were they? Sure, the eastern states were big on the church, but even they would have second thoughts if the pontifical see hung the knights out to dry. What were they thinking?

I was still frowning over the question when a familiar young man’s voice rang out behind me, along with the clank of metal armor.

“There you are, Gil. Hurry back to camp before Konoha gives me a tongue-lashing,” said Yen Checker, my best friend, university classmate, and bodyguard for the duration of this campaign. His hair was a dusty black, his perfectly toned body was sheathed in black armor, and a plain longsword hung at his side—a real knight, straight out of the “good old days.” He also got along with my prickly attendant. Just the other day, she’d helped him decide on a present for his girlfriend, our witchy classmate Teto Tijerina.

“I can never settle down at HQ.” I shrugged, then threw in a quick bow. “Sorry for dragging you out to a battlefield when you should be picking out a place to settle down with Teto after your graduation next spring.”

Yen hesitated, avoiding my gaze. “No, it’s no trouble.”

Hmm... What have we here?

Yen was my brother-in-arms. Together, we had survived Allen’s bad case of “See? You can do it too!” syndrome—made worse by the fact that Teto usually could—Lydia’s high-handed whims, and the professor’s and Anko’s unexpected—and unreasonable—demands.

“Oh, I see how it is.” I poked him in the chest. “You’ve already got a place, haven’t you? So, where is it?”

“I...I can’t tell you yet.” Yen’s gaze wandered. A shudder disturbed his face, which even I had to admit was handsome. “We haven’t even told Allen and Lydia. Remember our motto.”

“Obey Lydia without question! Revere Anko with all your heart! When Allen asks you for a favor, say only, ‘It would be my pleasure!’” I recited. “It’s ingrained in my bones at this point.”

Our all-too-intense university experience had instilled our cohort and the one below it with absolute loyalty to, and awe for, the three powers of our lab: the Lady of the Sword, her Brain, and the great black cat—as enigmatic as it was majestic, despite ostensibly being the professor’s familiar. Not that I wanted to give the wrong impression. Allen had been a wonderful upperclassman—he just set grueling tasks. But no one wanted to risk getting punished by Lydia or Anko. That was a death sentence.

“I had a thought lately, Yen,” I grumbled, squinting down into the slow-drifting sea of white. “I’m busting my butt day in and day out, desperate to repay Allen after all he’s done for me. But am I even covering the interest, let alone making a dent in the principal? I mean, how do you think the heir to a house of rebels ended up in charge of an army, even on paper?”

“Gil,” Yen said heavily, “when I came to the university, my house had just kicked me out and I’d given up on my future. Now, thanks to Allen putting in a good word for me, I’ll be an honorable knight of the royal guard come spring. Try to be more like Teto. She accepts everything even while she screams about— Actually, on second thought, she’s dangerously close to Lydia. She runs wild the moment Allen asks her for anything. And she was still insisting that she’s ‘just a normal girl’ in her last letter. It sounds like she and Anko made it back from their mission in the southern capital safe and sound.”

“Yeah?”

Teto had a good head on her shoulders—you could tell because she’d picked Yen. She was also popular with the other member of our cohort, Soi Solnhofen, and the troublemakers in the class below us. But she practically worshipped the ground Allen walked on, and she tended to get carried away. Boy, had Yen and I suffered because of it! No “normal girl” got her own lab on graduation, let alone the title “Star Fiend,” even with the professor, Allen, and Lydia to champion her cause. The only thing Teto would ever find beyond her abilities was her dream of opening a small magical goods shop.

Of course, even with all that, Allen never called her a genius.

Yen patted me on the shoulder. “Some scary people want to see you about sneaking out of headquarters.”

I spotted two figures in the mist and pulled a face. “Wish me luck. Oh, and let me know when you’ve settled on a date for the wedding.”

“Give it a rest. I bet you’ll tie the knot before I do.”

With that startling retort, the illegitimate son of the western Earl Checker saluted the new arrivals and departed. That left me alone with a stern, brawny, platinum-haired military man and a beautiful elf who had jade-green hair and carried a long spear.

“Duke Walter, Duchess Letty,” I greeted the real leaders of the campaign. “I beg your pardon. I did not mean to waste your valuable—”

“No matter,” said Duke Walter Howard, the Wolf of the North.

“There are prying eyes in camp,” added Duchess Emerita Leticia Lebufera, the Emerald Gale, who had crossed spears with the Dark Lord herself during the war two hundred years ago.

I shrank from them, awestruck. I was no Allen.

Duchess Letty strode to the brow of the hill in her pale-green uniform. “O Gil, how do you read the present military situation?” she asked with her back to me. “And cease trying to talk like a courtier.”

“R-Right.” Flummoxed, I turned to Duke Walter. He nodded.

Oh well.

“It’s pretty weird,” I said slowly.

Their eyes turned curious.

“Oh?”

“In what way?”

I rubbed my chin and started putting my thoughts into words. “The guys who attacked us at the border were run-of-the-mill daredevils, all brawn, no brains, and itching for a fight. I almost thought we were gonna settle things then and there.”

I thought back to the war stories my now bedridden father, Guido Algren, had told me as a kid. “When the Knights of the Holy Spirit charge, watch out,” he’d said. “They’re throwing their lives away.”

I turned to eye the citadel that loomed through the thinning mist. “But they’ve barely put up a fight since we broke through their front lines—just holed up in their HQ and barred the doors. We haven’t seen an apostle cadet, let alone the real thing. Not even a disposable pawn, like my brother Gregory during the rebellion, or the spell-soldiers they’re supposed to be mass-producing.” I took my hand off my chin. “Is it just me, or does whoever’s been pulling the knights’ strings—Pontiff Theobald III or the fake Saint I’ve heard so much about—not plan on lifting a finger to bail them out of this?”

“Hmm...” Duchess Letty seemed to consider.

“And what do they hope to gain by withholding reinforcements?” asked the “god of war” who had crushed a Yustinian army at Rostlay a few short months ago and routed the fanatical Knights of the Holy Spirit even more recently.

“My guess is they’re buying time with what looks like a juicy prize,” I said bitterly. “Now that I think about it, they’ve got every power on the west of the continent knee-deep in trouble, starting with the eastern rebellion my house threw its weight behind. The kingdom’s stretched thin. And that leaves one person to run around putting out fires.”

“So their aim is Allen. Damn their eyes! They’d see a loyal ally ruined merely to tie us down for a time.” The storied war veteran glared daggers at the eight bastions and gave her jade hair an angry flip. It looked like my old school friend who never stopped declaring himself an “ordinary person”—and whom I’d never stop looking up to—had finally made himself a priority target for the church’s leaders.

But why can’t I shake this queasy, clingy feeling that something’s off? Sure, Allen’s an amazing guy. And they probably can’t ignore the great elementals either. But do they really need to focus on him over all the other major players in the kingdom?

“We should fall back,” said the war god. Duchess Letty and I turned to stare at him, and the seasoned general stroked his beard. “Merely holding territory gains us nothing. If our enemy is willing to sacrifice the entire knightdom, why should we play along?”

“I fully concur!” I brought my fists together in a show of approval. Not many people could decide on a retreat that quickly, but Duke Walter wasn’t one of the kingdom’s most famous generals for nothing.

An emerald wind whirled, blowing back the mist.

“I cannot prove it, but I’d wager they achieved their greatest objectives in the kingdom, in the league, in Lalannoy, and just recently in the empire. They prize strategic victories above tactical ones.” The elven champion struck the ground with the butt of her spear. Rage and fear blazed in her beautiful eyes. “O Walter, Gil, beware. Our foe in the pontifical palace’s inner sanctum is a monster and will willingly see a host of allies slain without turning a hair.”

A gloomy silence expressed our agreement. Who was our enemy? The full might of the kingdom couldn’t even answer that.

“Be that as it may... Has word reached you, Gil? Allen has handed the royal capital another dilemma—two at once, in fact! He himself has finished his business in the empire and returned to the northern capital. I’ve only just heard.” The elf’s dour face brightened, and she let out a great peal of laughter.

“Dilemmas” courtesy of Allen? I’m glad he’s okay, but I hope I can stay out of them.

Duke Walter frowned. “Letty, is this really the place?”

Yup. Sounds like a state secret, or close enough to make no difference.

“Why not? Gil will be a duke himself someday.” Duchess Letty chuckled. “O Wolf of the North, I suggest you make up your mind and take action in earnest, lest the Leinsters steal a march on you. The cadet branch is as formidable as the main house. I must light a fire under Leo.”

A wintry gust turned a patch of ground to a sheet of ice. “Pardon me.” The disgruntled god of war strode off back to camp.

“Teased him overmuch, have I? I’ll give the particulars later, but it involves the Yustinians and the Dark Lord.” The elf chuckled, tousled my hair like I was a child, and gave chase.

Left behind, although I sensed Konoha’s mana nearby, I looked skyward and grinned in spite of myself.

“Keep it within reason, would you, Allen?”

His phantom excuses echoed in my ears.

“But I haven’t done anything, Gil!”

✽

“The reports are accurate, then? Track-laying in Atlas is ahead of schedule, and construction is almost complete from Sets to the Avasiek Plain?” I paused. “Well, well, well.”

“F-Felicia? You look— Anyway, I’ve already checked these.”

Papers floated off my office desk and glided into position in front of me.

A levitation spell! Just like Allen always uses!

I quenched my anger and said, “Thank you, Teto.” The older girl in the unmissable black witch hat must have been busy—she had only recently returned from escorting persons of consequence between the city of water and the southern capital—but she had still bothered to call at the company offices. “It’s nothing. There’s just a little bad blood between me and Niche Nitti, who’s directing construction and just about everything else in the Atlasian capital.”

“Y-You don’t say.” Teto Tijerina seemed at a loss, but she had been forged in the fires of daily interactions with Allen, Lydia, and the professor. She only toyed with her perfect light-brown braid and made no attempt to pry. The engagement ring on her right hand glinted in the sunlight.

Allen will trust Niche more than ever after this. But I’m his head clerk! I need to hold my own!

I rolled up the sleeves of my gray sweater and stretched, groaning. My shoulders got so stiff, probably because my chest had grown while the rest of me stayed the same. Then again, it could have been lack of exercise, since I hardly ever went out.

I heard Howard and Leinster maids cheering in the next room. Teto’s southern souvenirs must have made their way around the office. Despite a civil war in Lalannoy, a raid on the Yustinian capital, and fighting on our own eastern border, Allen & Co. remained peaceful as could be—and so busy that we needed to ask visitors like Teto to pitch in. Everything was looking up. Even my father, Ernest Fosse, was safe and free of his church abductors.

O-Of course, it would be even better if Allen were here. I’m really starting to miss him.

“Niche attended the Royal Academy at the same time as my dear brother and sister. He did much to expedite reconstruction in the city of water as well,” a red-haired girl noted, interrupting my wayward thoughts from the couch where she sat stroking Anko, the professor’s black cat familiar. Lynne, the younger daughter of Duke and Duchess Leinster, had made her way back to the royal capital not long after Teto. I loved her light-red sweater. “Teto, I’ve only just looked over your report, but I see that escorting the Carniens out of the southern capital must have been quite taxing, when you had to be mindful of Niccolò as well. You rose to the challenge beautifully.”

Lynne seemed awfully mature for her age, and her praise had an air of real dignity. She was a proper lady—a “Highness”—although the fact tended to slip my mind. I wondered if Allen taught his pupils etiquette along with everything else.

While I let my mind wander again, Teto clapped her petite hands together. “Oh, I see. Felicia sees Niche Nitti as a rival for Allen’s confidence. That explains everything. And thank you for saying so. I’m used to unreasonable demands from the professor and Allen. But you must be exhausted yourself after all the work you did in the southern capital. Investigating, negotiating with the Skyhawk Company, interviewing Marchesa Carlotta Carnien...”

“I learned a lot from the experience,” said Lynne, “although I think I’d rather bring Tina and Ellie with me next time.”

“W-Wait!” I cut in, waving my arms in protest. “You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t see him like that at all. I mean, I’ve never even met Niche. We only send each other reports.”

“Oh really?” came the disbelieving duet.

More laughter filtered in from the next room. It sounded like Niccolò and his attendant Tuna were relaxing with the maids.

“Niche looks a lot like Niccolò,” Lynne cheerfully informed me, “only taller, sterner, and with spectacles. He gives an impression of worldly wisdom gained through bitter experience. And he’s soft on his secretary, Jutta.”

“I had a chance to chat with him at a temporary station in Avasiek, and I got the sense that his glare and tone do him no favors,” added Teto. “He said, ‘You went through school a year behind him? I don’t envy your misfortune.’ But all the while, he was holding a thick stack of papers, which turned out to be his monthly report to Allen.”

“My dear sister told me that the reports were his own idea, if you can believe it. After that fuss in the city of water, I caught her grousing about how my dear brother ‘only ever takes the most impossible men under his wing.’”

“Whoa! But you know, she has a point. Niche might be a little like our lab-mate Uri.”

I groaned.

They’re doing it on purpose! I know they are! They’re out to fan the flames of my rivalry!

I turned away from the pair, looping a lock of light-chestnut hair that fell over my left eye around my finger. “You both just love teasing me, don’t you? I don’t see why you’d want to copy Allen’s mean streak along with his good points. How I miss dear, kindhearted Ellie.”

As I spoke, the young maid in question must have been busy with the professor’s other students, working to disenchant the Sealed Archive after the Great Tree had blocked it up. The future head of the Walker family, longtime Howard retainers, had been the only one to stay in the royal capital with me when my best friend, Stella, had gone off to the city of craft and my other best friend, Caren, had followed hot on her heels. We’d gotten to know—and like—each other pretty well during the time we’d spent living in the Leinster mansion. I had begun to understand why Allen had such a soft spot for her.

I mean, she’s adorable! I bet this is how I’d feel about a little sister, if I had one.

“Is that so?” Lynne shrugged to Teto, not even trying to hide it. “You have far too many illusions about Ellie, Felicia. My dear brother tells everyone that she’s an ‘angel,’ but she’s a good deal tougher and craftier than Tina ever was. Not that she isn’t charming.”

“We’re all right,” Teto assured me. “You’re just like Allen yourself, the way you seem to enjoy paperwork—and have no scruples about off-loading it on visitors like us.”

I whimpered, realizing the deck was stacked against me. Why couldn’t Lynne and Teto see that they were talking like Allen themselves?

Still, setting my dissatisfaction aside, I opened a drawer and took out a letter in a beautiful jade-green envelope. A gentle breeze sprang up the moment I laid it on the desk, although a Royal Academy dropout such as I couldn’t begin to guess how or why. Anko’s eyes widened, and the familiar’s tail lashed slowly.

“What is this?” asked Lynne.

“That’s a masterful wind spell you have there,” said Teto.

“It arrived from the western capital this morning.” I nodded, seeing that I had piqued their curiosity. “You remember how Allen asked the champions of the west to reforge Caren’s dagger and forge a new one for Lynne? Well, they’re ready to begin. They should arrive any day now.”

“Do you mean it?!” Lynne half bolted out of her chair, a stray lock on top of her head waving from side to side.

She wasn’t overreacting. Having grown up in the west myself, I knew as well as anyone that the demisprite Glenbysidhes, the dragonfolk Ios, the dwarven Vaubels, and the giant Gangs were among the greatest of the long-lived houses. And a letter signed by the heads of all four? I heaved a silent sigh. I’d come across too many marvels since I’d met Allen, and it was throwing my sense of proportion all out of whack. I thought I’d better keep an eye on myself.

Lynne seized the letter, clutched it to her bosom, and turned a pirouette. “A fiery blade for me! Just for me! And at my dear brother’s request! Oh, but wait! Felicia, as soon as Caren reaches the northern capital—”

“I’ll get a telephone call,” I said. “It’s all arranged.”

“I should have known you’d think of her!” Lynne giggled. “Really, I can hardly wait.”

She looked so happy that I couldn’t help smiling too.

This calls for a party! I’d better keep in touch with the Howards and the Leinsters so we can all be ready to celebrate.

The little red-haired aristocrat sprawled on the couch and started gleefully reading the letter. I watched her out of the corner of my eye while I moved on to the major question facing us.

“As for Ms. Else’s personal proposal, that we share what we know about the cult of the Great Moon, I’m waiting on Allen’s decision. Personally, and with an eye to the future, I’m all for working with the president of the company that controls all our mail griffins. On the other hand...”

“Allen will step down and make you president of this company in a heartbeat if you take the initiative. Nothing would make him happier. He’s got an awful habit of giving other people honors and privileges that should be his if you give him half a chance,” Teto prophesied, resting her chin in her hands. I could bet she’d been on the receiving end of that more than once.

“Don’t worry!” I thumped my chest, right over my heart. “I won’t do a thing until I’ve talked it over with Allen. It helps that Margrave Solnhofen is already taking steps on my behalf.”

“By asking the western elders what they know about the great spells and elementals, right? And in exchange, you’ll give him access to the company’s markets. I doubt he’ll have an easy time— Wait. I-Is this mana what I think it is?” Confusion filled the eyes beneath the brim of the witch hat. The black cat looked up as well.

“Teto?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

“And you, Anko,” Lynne added, puzzled. “Whatever is the matter?”

A cat mewed softly.

Almost in unison, we spun to face Allen’s usual chair. On it sat...

“A white cat?” I gasped. “But where did it come from? The doors and windows are all shut.”

The pure-white cat, which I had never seen before in my life, gave another mew and sprang at me. I scrambled to catch it. The cat stared at me with its gorgeous eyes, meowed first to Anko, then to Teto, and disappeared. Nothing remained in my hands but an apparently handmade envelope—plain, although I could tell it had been folded with care.

“Uh, what? When did this get here? And where did that cat go?” I gaped, goggle-eyed, around the room.

Lynne, meanwhile, narrowed her eyes to a razor glare. “What was that?”

“No way. It couldn’t be,” Teto murmured, clutching her witch hat in shock.

Could this mystery envelope be...dangerous, maybe? But the maids are still in the next room, and they’re not doing anything about it. Not even Sally and Emma, and they’re the most overprotective of them all, on top of being number four in the Howard and Leinster corps, respectively.

Teto took several deep breaths, then got up from her chair as though she’d steeled herself for something. “You’ve had a letter from Allen, haven’t you, Felicia?”

“Huh? Oh, yes,” I said. “He wrote me from the Yustinian capital. But that was just an update on recent events. He did mention that a ‘friend’ of his might drop by the offices, but I doubt he meant a cat.”

“Would you mind letting me read that letter?”

“N-No.” I unlocked a wooden box on my desk, took out the letter, and handed it to Teto. The master sorceress quickly scanned its contents...

“Oh, of all the—! Allen, what is wrong with you?!”

...and suddenly burst into a childish tantrum. She was leaking mana, although to my amazement, she kept it all contained within wards of her own making. Lynne and I looked on anxiously.

“Uh, Teto?”

“A-Are you quite well?”

She frowned, sighed, and showed us the message. Some of the letters were giving off a faint glow. I couldn’t quite make them out, but...was that a code?

“The professor’s students send secret messages this way, only among ourselves. He must have predicted that I would visit you here. And that white cat definitely picked up on it too. The code just mentions ‘a guest from the far west.’ It’s always something with him, but this takes the cake.” Teto flashed a brittle smile, drew in a breath, and closed her eyes. “That white cat was the Dark Lord’s familiar. She’s chosen you, Felicia.”

Lynne and I had been instinctively squeezing each other’s hands. Now we froze.

“Umm...”

“Huh?”

Excuse me? The Dark Lord? The one who rules everything west of Blood River? What? I mean, what?!

“Felicia,” Teto continued, pacing the room, “have you forwarded a letter from Allen to Lord Solnhofen recently? Something urgent?”

“Y-Yes,” I answered. “Just the other day.”

“That was a message to the Dark Lord herself.”

“Umm... What?” Lynne and I gasped in unison. Then, by unspoken agreement, we pinched each other’s cheeks.

Ow. I guess that means I’m not dreaming. Still, it sure gets hard to think when you stumble into something you’re just not ready for.

Teto, who seemed to have a greater tolerance than either of us, stuck to cradling the black cat. “I don’t understand what’s going on any more than you do. But I think it’s safe to say that Allen has struck up an acquaintance with the Dark Lord. And he calls himself ‘ordinary’! According to Anko, her reply is in that envelope. And we’re forbidden to speak of it to anyone.”

Words failed me—and Lynne, it seemed. I stared at the letter in my hands. “The D-D-Dark Lord? As in—”

I swooned. My attempt at speech ended in a squeak. When I came to, Lynne was propping me up, crying, “F-Felicia! You can’t faint now! We need to deliver this to my dear brother as soon as— Oh, but how silly of me! We have Teto here! We can count on her to—”

“I can’t deliver it, and neither can you, Lynne.” The witchy young woman reached out to take the envelope from my hands. To our shock, mana so potent I could see it knocked her hand away.

A tailor-made protective spell?!

We gaped. Teto frowned.

“That white cat chose you to carry the letter from here,” she explained. “I assume it can’t go too far from its mistress. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

“I-It’s all too sudden. I d-don’t know what—”

“Felicia?!”

“Emma, Sally, come quick!”

Another squeak, another swoon. The demands on my mind had gone way beyond anything it could handle. Girls’ warm bodies surrounded me as their voices faded into the distance.

“I-In any case, I suggest we wait until my dear brother reaches the northern capital!”

“Th-That’s a good idea. The professor is never here when you need him, and I think the headmaster’s gone to the western capital. Anko, will that do for— Huh? What do you mean, ‘too slow’?”

Teto’s startled question was the last thing I heard.

Oh, for the love of—! Allen, why do you always, always have to surprise us?! You’d better believe I’ll be giving you a piece of my mind the next time I see—

With a black cat’s gentle mew, my thoughts sank into the soft darkness of a lap under my head.

✽

I heard the pleasant scritch-scratch of a pen from the seat next to mine. Despite the occasional pause, it almost never seemed to hesitate. I pretended to look down at my own papers, stealing glances at the company president, who looked so good in those white business shirts.

“Do you have a question for me, Felicia?” he asked. “You’re making it a little hard to concentrate.”

“Do I?” He’d caught on, so I moved closer, chair and all, and gave him my best withering stare. “You’d better believe I do!”

Allen’s hands never stopped moving, rapidly sorting papers into wooden trays.

“How do you make decisions so quickly?” I demanded. “Teach me your secret!”

“You work quickly yourself. I won’t help you take on any more than you already do. Emma and Sally would never let me hear the end of it.” He gave me a pat on the head, like I was some little kid. My heart leapt with joy in spite of my frustration. Allen never played fair.

“Th-That’s beside the point! Don’t tease me!” Acutely aware that I was blushing, I struck back, pummeling his left arm.

“I certainly wasn’t trying to,” he demurred.

“Hurry up!” We were alone in the office, so I felt no compunction about yanking on his shirtsleeve. I would never let my best friends or my younger pals see me acting this childish.

Allen stopped writing and gave me a rueful grin. “I don’t do anything terribly difficult. Only...”

“Only what?” I looked up at him, still clutching his sleeve and hanging on his every word.

What happened to your fear of men? a part of me gibed.

But it’s Allen, I shushed myself. What other answer could there be?

My kind, gentle boss gazed at me. “When I’m pressed for an immediate decision and I lack data, I follow my instinct. Better to act than to vacillate—or so my martial arts teacher always told me. And besides...”

He reached out again, this time to tenderly brush my bangs out of my eyes. I felt a hot flush come over me as my view widened. My heart beat painfully fast. But I didn’t mind. Before I could respond, Allen started to blur.

“You’ll step in to stop me if I make a mistake, so I don’t need to worry overmuch. When in doubt, take action. It wouldn’t hurt to leave the royal capital and go on an adventure every now and then.”

✽

Moonbeams filtered through the curtains, lighting the spacious room. I heard Lynne and Ellie breathing softly on the large bed next to mine.

Oh, right. I fainted in my office today, and they carried me back to the Leinster mansion.

I sighed, then put on my spectacles, slipped out of bed, and walked over to the window, pointedly ignoring the Dark Lord’s faintly glowing letter, which lay on a writing desk. I had no idea how the message stuck with me, but it refused to leave. Even the bustling royal capital was quiet at this hour of the night.

“It wouldn’t hurt to go on an adventure.” Easy for you to say, Dream Allen. But me?

“Oh,” I groaned, “wh-what am I going to do?”

I couldn’t make up my mind on the spot. Of course I couldn’t. This was the Dark Lord we were talking about. The dreaded ruler of the demonfolk west of Blood River made her presence felt in who-knew-how-many fairy tales. Who was I, a humble merchant’s daughter, to get mixed up in her business? The windowpane reflected a short girl in a lilac nightgown, looking anything but sure of herself.

I’m just not up to—

A warm touch on my feet cut my brooding short. I looked down.

“Anko?”

The black cat was rubbing against my legs. This familiar of the professor seemed to do what it liked, without any kind of restriction on its activities—not, now that I came to think about it, like any familiar I’d learned about at the Royal Academy. It beckoned me with a forepaw, so I crouched down. It hopped into my arms and meowed. To my astonishment, I understood.

“Huh? D-Do you mean...you’ll g-go north with me?”

Is this what the others have been telling me about?

I stood up, still hugging the cat, and dropped into an armless chair nearby. “Well, um, I appreciate the thought, but I’m the head clerk here. It’s my job to keep the business running while Allen is away.” I knew I was making excuses, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone about the letter, so I can’t even explain myself to the maids. Ellie’s busy reopening the Sealed Archive, and the professor told Teto to help her. And Lynne needs to keep her eyes peeled for the long-lived chieftains.”

Yellow eyes bored into me, flashing in the dark like lunar amber, long since exhausted in the west of the continent. Cowed, I mumbled the truth.

“I mean, I’m sure I could work something out if I really tried. But...but I’m scared. I think I can help Allen with work like I do here, or like I did helping manage supplies in the southern capital. Only...”

Anko made not a peep. The familiar just sat on my lap, listening to the words pour out of me.

“I’ll get in Allen’s way if I go north, even as a messenger. He showed me a new way to live. He even rescued my dad. I don’t want to be, well, a burden to him. That scares me way, way more than running a business that represents two ducal houses. I can’t stop shaking.” I seized my right hand with my left and squeezed my eyes shut. “Duke Leinster is the only important person I was able to get in touch with, and do you know what His Highness told me from the southern capital? ‘Felicia Fosse, I will abide by your decision. As for the existence and contents of the letter, I strictly forbid you to disclose them to anyone, including any maid attached to the company.’ Everybody seems to think far too much of me since the Southern War.”

I felt a weight on my left shoulder and opened my eyes. Anko planted a forepaw on my head. I couldn’t help laughing. The cat was trying to encourage me.

“I know. Pathetic, right? Stella and Caren keep growing. So do Tina, Lynne, and Ellie, even though they’re younger than me. I’m the only one dragging her feet about—”

“Felicia!”

I shrieked as a girl threw her arms around me. She wore a nightgown just like mine, only pastel green.

“Ellie?” I gasped. “Y-You’re awake?!”

“Don’t worry!” she cried, the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “Mr. Allen would never consider you a burden! In fact, if you bring him the letter, I just know he’ll be delighted!”

Next came Lynne. “Ellie, squeeze over a smidgen,” she said, pushing her best friend aside and taking my hand. “Why sit here fretting when you can do something about it? Hop on a train tomorrow, and you can reach the northern capital as soon as the day after. I’ll notify the Howards myself! I’m certain the maids can keep the company running for a short while without you, especially since Ellie, Teto, Niccolò, and I will be here.”

“Oh, Lynne. But then—”

The black cat batted my forehead with a forepaw in a passable imitation of Allen.

“See?” said Ellie. “Even Anko agrees with us.”

“Go on, Felicia!” pressed Lynne.

I took deep breaths, calming my mind.

When in doubt, act! Even if I get something wrong, Allen will step in to stop me. And now that’s settled...

“Ellie, Lynne.” I faced my younger friends, fidgeting with my fingers. “Would you, um, mind helping me pack? I’ve n-never taken a trip on my own, you see. And, well, I’d l-like to have a nice outfit ready for when I see Allen.”

“You can count on us!” Ellie chirped.

“I’ll have you know I’m quite well traveled. And of course...” Lynne turned to the door, planted her left hand on her hip, and hollered, “You’ll all help too!”

An avalanche of company maids piled into the room. Evidently they’d been eavesdropping.

“E-Emma, Sally?” I gasped. “A-Are you all here?”

The two ranking maids, normally so cool and collected, looked shaken. The whole group had tears in their eyes.

“I...I beg your pardon, Miss Fosse.”

“We were simply beside ourselves with worry.”

I’m a lucky girl.

While I wiped away my own tears with my fingers, Lynne set about issuing orders.

“Don’t ask for explanations! Felicia is taking a train north on important business involving my dear brother. You’re to help her pack. No doubt you’re anxious to know who will be accompanying her.”

The black cat meowed and swished its tail.

“The answer is Anko—supposedly the professor’s familiar, although I have my doubts.” The little red-haired aristocrat gave a mischievous wink. “You have no reason to worry. I’m told that Anko once apprehended my dear sister with ease when she was in a temper during her university days. Now, hop to it!”

“Yes, Lady Lynne!” came the chorus of replies. The bedroom lights went on, and maids launched into a frenzy of activity.

Anko bounded from my left shoulder to the desk and, unbelievably, curled up on top of the Dark Lord’s letter.

Okay. I’ll leave you to it.

“So, um, th-thank you both.” I gave my younger friends a hug of my own.

“Just remember to repay the favor,” said Lynne.

“I’m so glad we’ve gotten to know each other better!” Ellie added.

All three of us shared a laugh and joined hands.

Wait for me, won’t you, Allen?

The black cat yawned capaciously and leisurely repositioned its ears and tail.

✽

From the air, the northern village looked white under a thin blanket of the previous night’s snow. Adult villagers stopped shoveling to look up at our griffins, while children waved in excitement. It was a vision of bucolic peace.

Four days had flown by since we’d left the Yustinian capital. After crossing the border into kingdom-controlled territory, we had surveyed Shiki from the air, relying on a copy of Millie Walker’s map that Lady Shise had made for us. We hadn’t managed to locate the Bibliophage’s second tome or the archive that housed it, but we had picked out a site for our base camp. The nearby natural hot spring had been quite a find. We had originally planned to stick it out one more day, but then Tina had spoken up.

“Sir, the weather will take a turn for the worse tomorrow. We’d better head back to the northern capital for now!”

Despite her youth, she knew the northern weather like the back of her hand. I couldn’t ignore her warning. Lydia and Lily—currently out scouting ahead—had agreed, so we had left the camp in the care of Anna and her maids, who had graciously offered to “hold the fort.” And now here we were, traveling south. I only wished that we could have stopped to pay our respects to Under-duke Euni Howard, governor of Galois, but he was out touring his lands.

I warmed the air with a spell and called to the girl mounted behind me, a cloak buttoned over her military uniform. “Tina was right. It looks like they got snow here. You aren’t cold, are you, Stella?”

“N-No, Mr. Allen, not at all. That is, I’m quite, um, warm,” the noblewoman—or saint, as the local people had come to call her with an almost religious fervor—answered bashfully and pressed her forehead against my back. She seemed glad to have seized her first victory in the last of the hotly contested twice-daily lotteries to share my saddle. We had already passed over the Lignier River—once the border between the kingdom and the empire—and the famous Twin Heavens Bridge that spanned it, as well as Seesehr, the first city of Galois and the northern terminus of the rail network that spanned the kingdom. It wouldn’t be long before we reached the dear old Howard mansion.

I overheard two excited children fussing atop the griffin behind us on the right.

“Miss Atra, Miss Lia, leaning over the side is a no-no,” chided Romy, the black-haired, bespectacled second-in-command of the Leinster Maid Corps, who held the reins. Despite her warning, she was smiling.

I reined in our own speed slightly and winked at the young woman behind me. “I suppose we should have made a pass over Rostlay on our way through Galois. I would have liked to see the place where the legend of Saint Wolf began.”

A few short months ago, an army under Duke Walter Howard had vanquished the forces of the now former imperial crown prince at Rostlay, an old battlefield in southern Galois. There, our very own Stella had faced down Edith, the apostle pulling the ex-prince’s strings, and cleansed the taint of the taboo spell Reverie of Restless Revenants.

“A-Alice was there too, you know.” Our platinum-haired saint blushed red as an apple, then pursed her lips. “Oh, really, Mr. Allen. You shouldn’t tease me like that!”

I glanced at the sky ahead and chuckled. “Forgive me. Your reactions are so charming, I couldn’t help myself.”

“I will not,” she said. “I-If you want my forgiveness, you’ll let me ride with you again on our next—”

“Ahem.” A griffin pulled up on our left, as close as safety would permit, and a girl wearing white sorceress’s garb under her cloak most deliberately cleared her throat from its back. Caren, who held the reins, must have cast a wind spell to help Tina’s voice carry. Lena, who sat cocooned in blankets on her lap, looked a little disgusted with the whole affair.

Tina stared suspiciously at her sister, that expressive lock of hair standing to attention. “Stella, is it me, or have you been clinging a little too tightly to Mr. Allen?”

A felt the warmth on my back recede a fraction.

“I...I’ve done nothing of the kind,” said its source.

“I have my doubts.” Radiating ice flakes, Tina called for reinforcements. “Justice Caren, how do you rule?!”

“Well...” My sister straightened her floral beret with her left hand, looking pensive. “I’ll allow it today.”

“Huh?!” Tina’s lips opened and closed in wordless astonishment. She must have expected Caren to take her side.

“Thank you,” said Stella, cheerful by contrast. “As promised, you can take my seat at dinner.”

“And at breakfast?” Caren asked.

“Did we agree to that?”

Both girls laughed sweetly. Clearly they had been negotiating in secret. And if things had come this far, then Lily, if not Lydia, was probably in on it as well.

While I dispelled the dancing flecks of ice, Tina stood in the saddle, holding Caren’s shoulder for support. “Corruption!” she cried. “Rank corruption! And by the leaders of the Royal Academy student council too! I won’t stand for it! You’re with me, aren’t you, Lena?! Aren’t you?!”

The great elemental of ice, who nevertheless claimed to mind the cold, twitched the feathers poking through her azure hair and looked annoyed. “Leave me out of your quarrels. Don’t you realize that the lightning wolf will confiscate my snacks if I offend her? And it’s your own fault for failing to draw the winning lot, like I did when we set out.”

“N-No!” Tina gasped. “How could evil have wormed its way into the heart of this innocent child?!”

It was always nice to see my students so full of energy. Even our escort of Howard maids astride military griffins were shooting tender looks at the young lady they’d sworn to protect. Nevertheless, we couldn’t risk Tina losing control of her mana at this altitude.

I’d better step in before—

Scarlet fireballs burst in the air ahead and far above us.

“Allen!” Caren cried. “Isn’t that...?”

“Yes, it’s a signal from Lydia and Lily.” I nodded as the maids maneuvered their griffins into a defensive formation.

Atra and Lia burst into a cheerful song from their seats on either side of Romy. Lena grumbled that she “might as well” and joined in. Mana began to glitter like gemstones, forming a pathway in midair. The Howard sisters forgot their quarrel and murmured appreciatively.

“Oh, wow.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Even the battle-hardened maids drew in their breath.

I gave my black griffin new instructions via the reins and smiled. “Stella, Tina, we’ve arrived. The northern capital is just ahead.”

We found the Howard Maid Corps’s second-in-command, Mina Walker, waiting for us high above the duke’s mansion. Her griffins led our descent toward an outdoor exercise yard in its spacious grounds.

Where are Lydia and Lily? Oh, I see them now.

They had left their mounts with Howard servants and busied themselves issuing orders to Leinster maids. Their long scarlet hair made them both easy to spot.

Meanwhile, the ground, conscientiously cleared of snow, rose toward us until we felt the slight jolt of landing. “Thank you. You’ve earned a rest,” I said, stroking the neck of the griffin that had borne us so well, and dismounted with my pack in hand. I noted Howard maids racing toward us out of the corner of my eye as I extended a hand to the young woman in the rear seat. “Would Your Highness care to take my hand?”

“O-Of course!” Stella had been clasping her hands like someone at prayer. Now she sat up straight in the saddle, blushing furiously.

I took her timidly extended right hand. She gasped.

“Whoa there!” I caught her as she nearly fell out of the saddle. The sky-blue ribbon holding her hair back fluttered wildly, and a wave of cheers from maids on all sides washed over us. I sensed at least four potent mana sources flare up—some on the ground, others airborne—but the noblewoman in my arms came first.

“Are you hurt?” I asked. “I suppose you must be exhausted after so many nights camping out of doors.”

“N-No, I’m fine, thank you.” Stella giggled softly, a little embarrassed and a lot glad, and leaned her forehead against my chest.

I felt a stiff gust reach my hair and back and shifted to shield Stella as Caren’s black griffin touched down. Both riders immediately dismounted.

“Allen...” said my sister.

“Stella...” said my companion’s.

“Guilty as charged!” they finished in unison.

Wh-What convoluted standards this court follows.

I forced a vague smile while the merciless pair tore Saint Wolf away from me.

“You’re coming with us.”

“And you don’t get an attorney.”

“C-Caren?! Tina?!” Stella cried. “Listen...”

If I could say one thing for certain...

“What’s ‘gilty’?”

“Lia wants a hug from Allen too!”

“W-Well, I don’t care one way or the other.”

...it would be that the whole scene was a bad influence on the children clinging to a faintly smiling Romy, who had just quietly landed her own griffin.

If only Ellie were here! I would feel so much less nervous with that little angel to balance the scales.

I shot a look at the bespectacled second-in-command while my thoughts flew to my student busy forging a path into the Sealed Archive. Then, leaving Atra, Lia, and the exasperated Lena in the maid’s care, I set off to join Lydia on the edge of the field. Her scarlet hair and white cloak, worn over equally bright sword-fighting attire, stood out vividly against the overcast winter sky.

“You’re late,” she said.

“D-Do you really think so?” I replied.

She radiated sullen displeasure. The children and the younger girls had all taken turns sharing my saddle in the past four days, albeit some more often than others. But Lydia, more than capable of single-handedly turning the tables in an emergency, had been excluded from all but the very first lottery so that she could scout ahead or keep watch from high above. Lily hadn’t even gotten that one chance, but such was her lot as a maid. In any case, Lydia must have built up a good deal of resentment, especially since we had entered the kingdom’s comparatively safer airspace. Morning sparring and late-night chats, it seemed, had not been enough for her. My partner cared little for accolades or even the fabulous rewards that came with them, which she had made it my problem to manage, but she still secretly craved companionship.

I’d better seriously consider renewing that pact.

“Listen up,” she said, leveling a dainty finger at the tip of my nose. “From now on, either you ride my griffin or I ride yours! Is that clear? Well? I expect an answer!”

“All right,” I said. “That’s fine by me.”

“Excuse me?! What kind of servant makes excuses to his— Huh?” Lydia goggled, her swift offensive cut short as my words sank in. She patted my cheeks, then took my left hand and touched it to hers, presumably to confirm that she wasn’t dreaming. She felt cold.

I took her hands and breathed on them, warming the air around us with a spell.

Maybe we ought to go glove shopping once we’re back in the royal capital.

“I’d like to ride behind someone for a change anyway,” I continued. “How about I share your griffin when we start searching Shiki in earnest?”

Lydia broke eye contact as a slow blush suffused her cheeks and the back of her neck. “I d-don’t see a problem with that if you—”

“Objection!” Lily interrupted in her usual singsong, the cloak over her typical outfit her sole concession to the freezing weather.

“Seconded!” cried Tina.

“I would be neglecting my sisterly duty if I left you alone with Lydia,” Caren chimed in.

“I think the lottery is a fair system,” added Stella.

Th-They have sharp ears. And they’ve gotten stealthier.

Lydia sharply clicked her tongue, glaring. “If you’re looking for a fight, I’ll give you one.”

“W-Well, you won’t win it!” Tina reached for the rod slung on her back.

“Do you think you’ll be able to outfight us forever?” Caren’s hand went to the hilt of her dagger.

Fiery plumes collided with ice flakes and violet sparks. Some of the maids and Howard menservants began to look alarmed.

Meanwhile, a wicked-looking Lily whispered in Stella’s ear, “What would my lady say to an alliance? Between the two of us, Mr. Allen would...”

Stella gave a start. “I...I couldn’t possibly. A-Although, still, I...I’ve as much right as anyone to...”

Now, how to put a stop to this mess? Oh dear. Atra and Lia look ready to come running any moment now. Lena, on the other hand, looks like she’d appreciate a rescue from those fawning maids.

Indifferent to my dilemma, Lydia and the others moved apart, poised to—

“My ladies, please come inside. It will snow again tonight,” said a bespectacled woman nearing old age. Maids of both ducal houses stood up straighter, and the menservants did likewise. Despite her unremarkable mana, she possessed an air of authority that made even Lydia and Caren exchange looks and bury the hatchet.

A moment later, Tina dismissed the spell she’d been weaving, Stella’s conflicted eyes lit up, and the sisters practically pounced on the maid, hugging her and shouting, “Shelley!”

The woman caught them lightly and gazed affectionately down at the pair. “Welcome home, Lady Stella, Lady Tina,” Shelley Walker, head maid to the Ducal House of Howard, said with feeling. “What a delight it is to see you safe and sound.”

Tina laughed.

“Thank you,” said Stella. “Ellie is in the royal capital, I’m sorry to say.”

“Is that so?” Mrs. Walker replied. “Still, I’ve spoken with her several times by telephone, so...”

The three of them fell into pleasant conversation. Tina and Stella had lost Duchess Rosa at such a young age that Shelley might as well have been their grandmother. Doubtless they had no end of things to tell each other.

“Allen.” Lily tugged on my sleeve, snapping me out of my tender reverie. She looked uncharacteristically grave. “Allen, who is that?”

“That’s Mrs. Walker, the Howards’ head maid,” I told her.

“She’s also Graham’s wife and Ellie’s grandmother,” added Caren.

“That’s ‘the Mastermind,’ the best logistician in the kingdom,” said Lydia. “Shelley’s a big part of the reason the northern houses can send an army all the way to the Knightdom of the Holy Spirit.”

“I...I knew it.” The scarlet-haired maid went saucer-eyed and staggered backward, head in her hands. “The living legend who defeated our head maid in the royal capital. N-No wonder she volunteered to stay in Shiki. Oh, what can I do?!”

Clearly she had heard how Anna had once challenged Shelley to a cleaning contest and been hoisted by her own petard. It was funny to see Lily genuinely anxious.

Mrs. Walker broke off her conversation with the Howard sisters to extend us a courteous greeting. “You must all be in need of a rest after your long journey. Graham’s letters have given me a general idea of the situation. Mr. Allen, Miss Caren, Lady Lydia, Lady Lily, you have all rendered incomparable service not only in Lalannoy, but in the empire as well. Permit me to extend my heartfelt congratulations.”

“It’s been too long,” I replied. “No doubt my achievements have been greatly exaggerated, but I will appreciate anything you can do for us during our brief stay.”

Lydia, Caren, and a nervous-looking Lily emulated my bow.

“I would like to offer you a bath to warm yourself before dinner, sir...” The head maid abruptly frowned. “But a pressing matter in the royal capital demands your attention.”

“In the royal capital?” I repeated, and we all exchanged puzzled looks. No news of the kind had reached me before we’d departed the Yustinian capital.

“I do not know the particulars myself,” said Mrs. Walker. “Lady Lynne Leinster and Ellie telephoned from the royal capital last night and requested that you contact them immediately upon your arrival. They also informed me that Miss Felicia Fosse will be coming here on urgent business. Her train will depart the royal capital tonight and is scheduled to arrive in this city on the morning of the day after tomorrow.”

“I see,” I said as cries of surprise burst from Tina, Stella, and Caren.

Lydia let out a thoughtful hum, her eyes alight with curiosity.

Lily was off in her own world again, mumbling, “Should I work with Romy? But then...”

Felicia was never one for getting out much. What could bring her all the way here from the royal capital now? Something big, that’s for certain. Perhaps...

“Mrs. Walker, may I borrow the telephone?” I asked. “And if you would make arrangements to meet Felicia at Central Station, I would very much appreciate it.”

“Certainly, sir.” The head maid curtsied to me and departed.

At once, Tina bounded toward the house like a puppy. “Sir, I’ll show you the way!”

“T-Tina! You mustn’t run!” Stella cried, taking off after her.

Lydia gazed after them, sighed, “Like sister, like sister,” and started to walk.

I waved to the children, who stood holding hands a short distance away. “You three go take a dip in the hot spring without us. It feels amazing!”

“Hot spring!” Atra repeated in a singsong.

“Hot, hot, hot!” cheered Lia.

“Y-You mean you won’t be accompanying us?” Lena asked.

They were all great elementals, but their reactions were adorably distinct.

“Mina, Romy, please look after the children,” I asked the maids watching over them. “Oh, and you too, Lily!”

“Consider it done, sir,” came two identical answers.

“Huh? A-Allen?!”

I threw a left-handed wave at the panicking maid, then put an arm around my sister’s shoulders.

“What do you think has gotten into Felicia?” Caren asked.

“I don’t know yet. But”—I winked—“I think you might go back to the royal capital a step ahead of the rest of us.”

✽

“There. That should do it for Ellie’s and Lynne’s assignments. Now I just need to think up something for Teto and Soi,” I murmured to myself in the dim light of the Howard archive’s mana lamps, closing the hefty Compendium of Magical Science and replacing it on its shelf.

“You are at perfect liberty to enter, sir,” Mrs. Walker had told me, “only please leave yourself time to rest.” Despite the warning, I was glad that I’d gotten her permission.

Beyond the small windows—quintuple-paned against the cold—the freezing rain that had started at dusk was turning to snow. We could expect a fresh blanket of the stuff in the morning if it kept up.

“It’s freezing!” I buttoned up my coat before stepping out into the corridor. Metal pipes ran hot water throughout the mansion, giving off a reassuring warmth even at night. I slipped my notebook inside my coat and set off toward the same room I had been permitted to occupy on my last visit. I passed several servants making their nightly rounds—notably Mina Walker and Roland Walker, a butler who seemed singularly cold in his manner to me—and exchanged news with them. The girls, it seemed, had all gone to bed, tired from a long journey and too much merrymaking. They had been having a heated argument about which of them would sleep in my room, but their ardor had fortunately cooled.

The windows gave on to an expanse of inky darkness. I couldn’t make out the moon or stars, and the snow seemed to be picking up steam. I recalled my telephone conversation with Lynne and Ellie earlier that day.

“Dear brother!” the former had begun. “The western chieftains are coming here to keep their promises to you. I’d like to report on my investigation in the southern capital as well, but I’ve entrusted that task to Felicia! She just boarded a train for the northern capital, with Anko along to guard her.”

“Oh, and, um, we’ve had a major emergency!” the latter had added. “O-Only I can’t tell you about it over the phone, because someone might be l-listening in. A pretty white cat came with a message and picked Felicia to deliver it.”

Both girls had sounded dazed and confused. Telephones remained uncommon, and calls made with them were more easily intercepted than orb communications. Nevertheless, I had managed to get a sense of three major developments.

• The former squadron commanders of the Shooting Star Brigade were on their way to reforge Caren’s dagger and forge a new one for Lynne, as I’d asked them to.
• Lynne had made great discoveries between her investigation in the southern capital and the people she’d met there.
• Something serious had happened, too important to discuss on the telephone. And it was bringing Felicia and Anko north.

I ran my fingers down a windowpane. “Hmm...”

They’ll need the wielder on hand for the reforging. That means sending Caren back to the royal capital. But alone? I know I can’t go with her—I’m committed to searching Shiki before the apostles get to it. But who should I ask?

I’m also curious what Lynne found in the south. And I need to write a personal thank-you to Else of the Skyhawk Company for lending us black griffins.

Then there’s the “pretty white cat” that Ellie said gave Felicia a message to carry, and whatever motivated Anko to guard her all the way here. That probably—no, make that definitely—means that she’s making her move. I need to act fast, before she hares off to the city of craft herself. What happened to our next meeting being in the Dark Lord’s capital?

“There you are, sir. I’ve been looking for you.”

I turned to see a young noblewoman wearing a casual white outfit. She must have changed clothes. I set my musings aside and approached her.

“Good evening, Tina,” I said. “What are you doing up at this hour? And dressed like that too.”

“Good evening. You see...” The platinum-haired girl took a step or two toward me, sounding embarrassed. “I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t been here in so long, but I can’t get to sleep. So I thought I’d get some magic practice in. But when I got to your room, Mina told me you’d gone to the archive. Would you mind taking a little walk with me?”

“I see.”

Practice would be overdoing it, but maybe I need to clear my head as well.

I offered Tina my hand.

She gave a start. “S-Sir?”

“Shall we?” I said. “Allen of the wolf clan of the eastern capital will gladly accompany Your Highness.”

For a moment, she only stared. Then, “I’d like that!”

I escorted Tina along deserted corridors. The snow was falling more heavily, as far as I could see through the glass, and the wind raised an occasional eerie wail. I kept a small mana lamp floating as I surveyed the rare plants around us.

“The greenhouse does have a certain charm after dark,” I said to the girl holding my left arm.

“Y-Yes, it c-certainly does,” she replied, her mind plainly elsewhere. Even her hair hung at a limp angle. A sudden gust outside rattled the whole greenhouse, and she squeezed my arm tighter.

“May I ask you something, Tina?”

“I...I’m not the least bit scared!” she snapped. “I was just thinking it’s a little darker than usual tonight, with the moon and stars hidden. I’m not holding on to you for any special reason. I mean it. A duke’s daughter doesn’t lie.”

“I see.”

So she’s not scared, is she? I guess I needn’t worry, then.

“That reminds me,” I said offhandedly as we walked on. “Did you know that the Leinster archive has a haunted tome in it?”

“S-Sir?! Wh-Why would you suddenly bring that up now?! And why are you smiling?!” Her Highness demanded in an adorable fury.

“Merely solicitude on my part.” I held up a finger, suppressing a leak of azure mana. “I aim to keep Your Highness entertained during this nighttime stroll.”

“I...I don’t need that kind of ‘solicitude’! Jeez! Jeez, I say! Jeez!” The ineffectual way she beat her hands on my chest hadn’t changed since I’d met her.

Then Tina’s fists stopped. She rubbed her head against me, giggling, and started to whistle. Where had all her anger gone?

Maybe it’s been a while since we talked just the two of us like this.

I entered Tina’s room in the greenhouse, pulled along by my left arm. Mrs. Walker and the maids must have been giving it a thorough daily cleaning, because our lamp revealed not a speck of dust on the shelves of books, the desk and chairs, the couch, and the candelabra we had used in our lessons. I had first come here, fresh from failing my court sorcerer exam, to tutor a magically impaired Tina and an Ellie sorely lacking confidence. Those days had become fond memories, although not much time had actually passed.

Tina let go of me and touched the desk. “Can you believe it, sir?” She looked back at me with the most genuine smile. “It all started here, in this little room.”

I nodded, sharing her flood of emotions. The Tina I’d first met had been nursing a secret pain, for all that she’d kept her eyes on the future. I found it all too easy to imagine what would have become of her if she had stayed that way.

“A year ago, I couldn’t cast a single spell,” she said, prodding the candelabra with her finger. “I didn’t have any friends my age except Ellie, I was a little on the short side, and my knowledge of the world began and ended with the northern capital.” A trickle of azure mana was coating the candelabra in frost. She looked up, clenching her fist.

“But I’ve changed.” Her eyes held a firm self-confidence, something she’d lacked back then. A light spell—albeit an imperfect one—projected a map of the west of the continent in midair, and Tina started pointing out places. “First I went to the royal capital, then to the eastern and southern ones. I’ve set foot in the city of water in the League of Principalities, in the Lalannoy Republic, and in the Yustinian Empire. I’ve made friends my own age. I’m growing by leaps and bounds. And most importantly...”

Tina held out her hands toward the candelabra. Mana whirled, immense but well controlled, whipping her hair and my coat.

“I have the magic you gave me. Look.”

The next instant, a breeze blew azure snow. Eight flowers of ice took form, blooming on the candelabra. Tina held out her hand to me.

“How did I do?” she asked shyly.

“Magnificently,” I said, with my whole heart, then dropped to one knee and took her little hand. I had stealthily intervened to impose a little extra control, but even so, she had left her former self far behind. I had never felt more glad that I had kept drilling her in the fundamentals of spell control.

I rose, overcome with emotion, and Tina threw her arms around me, tears in her eyes.

“It’s all, all thanks to you, sir—Allen.” Her slight body trembled, and I felt a heat on my chest. She didn’t even bother to dry her eyes as she said, “I can’t...can’t thank you enough. I can’t think how I could possibly repay you, and believe me, I’ve tried.”

Oh dear. Not many things bother me more than a girl in tears.

“You shouldn’t think of it that way,” I said, wiping her eyes with my handkerchief. “You’re always a great help to me. And besides, I still haven’t found a way to release Frigid Crane.”

“No! That won’t do! I refuse!” Tina hung her head, ears blushing furiously, as her shout echoed in the greenhouse. “I mean...”

While I waited for her to continue, I detected several familiar mana sources behind me. They had gotten a little too good at stealth.

Oblivious to the intruders, Tina let her gaze wander. “I mean, I...I need to earn a place at your side as soon as I possibly can. You’ll never stop treating me like a little girl until I—”

A hand seized Tina by the scruff of her neck and tossed her bodily onto the couch. She hit the cushions with a bizarre squawk.

“That’s enough of that, Tiny,” said Lydia, standing beside the couch in her pale-scarlet nightgown.

“Tina, I’d like a word with you,” Stella added from the other side, her own sleepwear a light azure.

Their eyes! I don’t like that look in their eyes.

“L-Lydia?! A-And you too, Stella?!” Tina leapt to her feet, cushion in hand. “But you were both sound asleep.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“We woke up with a feeling that something was wrong,” said Stella. “I see that you’ve changed out of your nightgown.”

“I...I don’t believe—” Tina gasped.

A split second later, Caren and Lily blocked the door, wearing capes over their own nightgowns—pastel yellow and light scarlet, respectively. There was no way out. Lydia and Stella flashed dazzling smiles.

“Now, it’s time for your punishment.”

“I think trying to steal a march on us is a serious offense. Don’t you?”

Tina bit her lip. “S-Sir, hel—”

“Try not to break anything,” I said, abandoning any idea of resistance and sinking into a chair.

Tina let out a soundless scream and started running for the other door. The two senior noblewomen gave chase with deliberate slowness.

I suppose they’ll interrogate me next.

While I ran my fingers over the candelabra, my sister came up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Allen.”

“I’ve made up my mind, Caren,” I said. “I wouldn’t feel easy sending you back to the royal capital alone. I’ll take a black griffin and—”

“Nope! Stop right there,” came a lilting interruption from the maid boiling water in the kitchenette.

“Lily and I were just discussing that problem,” Caren continued for her, touching my hair.

“I’ll go back with her by train tomorrow!”

“Come again?” I goggled, all the while keeping up remote interference against Tina, who was about to make a spell misfire, and Lydia, who kept misjudging how much to hold back. “I would appreciate it. But are you certain?” I asked Lily, who was setting out cups for all of us.

She opened a tea canister in front of me, tickling my nose with its rich aroma. “As a matter of fact, our second-in-command ordered me to take charge of things in the royal capital,” she said as she deftly added a small scoop of leaves to a teapot, her expression half dutiful maid and half scheming noblewoman. “And besides, I was our official emissary to Lalannoy, at least on paper, so apparently I’m obligated to report back. But if you’re concerned for me, you might speak to Miss Fosse about that maid uniform I asked her for.”

Certainly, both the Leinsters and the Howards had spread themselves thin to address troubles in many disparate quarters. Lily seemed the best person for the job, given the number of developments she would be able to respond to from the royal capital.

“Very well,” I said. “I hope you’ll look out for Caren, and for Ellie and Lynne once you arrive. And I understand about the maid uniform. I’ll drop a hint or two.”

“Thanks so much!” The maid did a pirouette and picked up the teapot, smiling as she filled our cups with steaming amber liquid. “And anyway...” A resounding crash drowned out the rest of Lily’s sentence. (“I’d love a chance to get to know my future sister-in-law better!”)

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” I said, while Caren frowned and lashed her tail. What could Lily have said to rile her so?

“Stand still, would you?!” Lydia snapped at a shrieking Tina while Stella cried, “Y-You really shouldn’t cast Firebird in the greenhouse!” Evidently, the highborn ladies’ game of tag was far from over.

I’d better step in. Stella seems to have come to her senses, and it sounds as though she’s having trouble.

“Caren, Lily, would you help me—”

I fell silent, studying my inexplicably wary sister and the cheerful, tea-pouring maid in profile.

Is this really going to work out?

My ring and bracelet blinked mockingly while screams and crashes filled the greenhouse.

Chapter 3

I found the girl I was looking for near the entrance to the Sealed Archive, rendered nearly unrecognizable by the roots and boughs of the Great Tree that blocked it off. She was speaking confidently to the knights of the royal guard providing security.

“Ellie!” I called, and the white ribbons in her blonde hair bounced as she turned to me with a smile so bright it seemed to blow away the lowering clouds. She wore her Royal Academy uniform and a green-and-white scarf that I’d heard she’d knitted herself.

“Oh, Teto!” she exclaimed, and my heart started racing. I wasn’t used to such a warm reception.

This charming little angel was Ellie Walker, Lady Tina’s personal maid and heir to a family that had supported the Ducal House of Howard for generations. She was also one of Allen’s students. Although she was only in her first year at the Royal Academy, she had a command of all the seven elements except for lightning and had even learned botanical magic, a skill known to few people in the kingdom. The control and stealth with which she cast spells already rivaled the best students at the university. She was currently working to unseal the archive alongside my own underclassmen. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like anything had changed since before I’d left to run the professor’s errands in the southern capital. I would need to help them come up with a new approach.

While I racked my brain, Ellie sprinted up to me and took my left hand, giggling. “Lady Lynne and Felicia told me you’d returned, but it’s so good to see you. Welcome back.”

“I-It’s good to be back,” I responded awkwardly, keeping my right hand on my witch hat to stop it sliding off my head. No younger girl had ever shown me such unadulterated affection and respect before, and I couldn’t quite keep my cool.

A tall girl wearing an orange cloth hat and a robe like mine, with a plain broadsword at her side—my classmate Soi Solnhofen—emerged from a tent farther in and snickered at me. Her shoulder-length hair, a deep shade of reddish brown, swayed with the gesture.

D-Don’t act like Ellie doesn’t have you wrapped around her little finger too! But I’m mature and dependable, I told myself despite my private indignation. Keep calm. Don’t let her get to you.

“You haven’t reached the entrance yet?” I asked the young maid, eyeing the roots and branches that had half consumed the antiquated mansion and covered its stone-flagged courtyard.

“No. We can’t even detect the teleportation ‘gate’ that was under the building.” Ellie visibly wilted, staring down at the ground, which had lost most of its stone covering, as she mumbled, “I’m letting Mr. Allen down. I’m so ashamed of myself.”

“That’s not true! You’re doing everything you can!” I shouted, surprising myself with my vehemence. “If anyone deserves blame”—I glared at my classmate, who was watching the little maid with concern—“it’s Soi Solnhofen for failing to make any progress while the rest of us were away! I won’t spare her feelings in my next report to Allen. How could I, after she failed her bodyguard mission to Lalannoy in record time?!”

Soi reeled. “T-Teto... Take that back!”

“It’s the truth!” I reached for the staff slung on my back. Her hand went to the hilt of her sword.

Allen and Lydia had personally interviewed and chosen students to join them under the professor’s guidance: me, Teto Tijerina; Gil Algren; Yen Checker; and a little later, Soi Solnhofen. Like the four in the year below us, we each lived with our own suffocating burdens. Allen had shown us all our paths forward and sped us on our ways. We owed him more than we could ever repay.

So how could Soi let herself screw up just when he needed her most?! At least Uri has the excuse of being a year below us!

The royal guard began a swift evacuation while the new students who had joined the lab that spring recoiled in terror. Maybe the knights had encountered Allen and Lydia’s—or Princess Cheryl’s—idea of friendly sparring before. Soi and I were about to lay into each other when Ellie intervened.

“S-Soi’s been a huge help. And so has everyone else from the professor’s lab. I already wrote Mr. Allen a letter about them! S-So don’t fight oach ether! Oh.” The angel stumbled in the final stretch and covered her face in embarrassment.

How could we make a scene in front of a girl like her?

I held out my staff and attempted to come to terms with my tall, ruddy-haired classmate. “Soi, your blunder—”

“Won’t be wiped out ’til my achievements more than make up for it.”

She drew her sword and touched it to my staff in one smooth motion. We nodded. Soi returned her weapon to its orange scabbard and rubbed the young maid’s head.

“Ellie, I’ll go hunting for new hints at the university. Don’t go anywhere with anyone you don’t know. Don’t push yourself too hard. Stop work on time. Got that?”

“Y-Yes’m!” Ellie responded. “Best of luck, Soi.”

My classmate’s usual sour expression softened into a tender smile. Soi’s unusual background had made her awkward and difficult, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her now. As I watched her lead our underclassmen away, I found myself wondering if Allen had intended this change in her all along.

Then Ellie tugged on my sleeve. “T-Teto, are those v-visitors, by any chance?”

I followed the little angel’s gaze to a young couple who stood waiting in what had once been the house. The royal guard had stopped them, and the man, who wore a fine blue suit, looked annoyed. I signaled to a knight in his prime. Soon the woman, young and wearing a blue dress, walked slowly over, leaning on a staff, and bobbed her head to Ellie.

“Allow me to introduce you,” I said. “This is Marchesa Carlotta Carnien. That gentleman is Marchese Carlyle Carnien, but don’t worry about him. He won’t be joining us in here.”

“Call me Carlotta,” said the marchesa. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“E-Ellie Walker, at your service.” The young maid removed her school beret and scarf and bobbed a perfect curtsy. Then she cast a spell of silence and ventured, “I thought that, um, persons from other nations weren’t, well, allowed to come here.”

Oh, Allen! This little angel has a head on her shoulders! What a change from Soi and Suse.

I pulled my witch hat low, unable to suppress my glee. Then I reslung my staff on my back and raised an index finger to my lips. “The professor and the headmaster were kind enough to secure His Royal Majesty’s permission in private. Lords Crom and Gardner oversaw the archive, but they both met mysterious deaths not too long ago, and Head Court Sorcerer Gerhard Gardner’s influence is starting to wane. Although strictly speaking, it was Allen who put the idea into all three of their heads. He said that he ‘hoped it would be some help to Ellie.’”

“Mr. Allen said that?!” Ellie’s anxious look turned to unbridled delight. She swayed from side to side, making it hard to miss how well-developed her breasts were for her age—possibly the little angel’s one flaw.

Th-Then again, I’m not so badly off myself. I catch Yen staring sometimes, and—

“Teto? Is something the matter?” Ellie’s puzzled stare jolted me from thoughts of my boyfriend, currently on the eastern front with Gil.

Whoops. No more of that. Get a grip on yourself, Teto. Soi and Suse will never let you hear the end of it if they find out, so keep calm and act natural.

I cleared my throat. “Ellie, would you tell me what you tried while I was out of the city?” I asked, forcefully steering the conversation back on course. Carlotta was giving me an amused look, but no good would come of dwelling on that.

“O-Of course. It, um, hasn’t changed much. We’ve been making minor adjustments to botanical spell formulae and trying them to see if we can move the roots and branches out of our way.” Ellie replaced her beret and scarf, instantly serious. A wave of her left hand conjured a row of intricate formulae in the air and cast a perception-blocking spell at the same time. She made it look easy, but Carlotta’s hand flew to her mouth in surprise at the advanced technique. “Soi shared some unusual western formulae with me, and Suse left more before she went to Lalannoy. I tried spells that Chieftain Chise—the Flower Sage—taught me as well. Some of them did have a small effect, but...”

“Not enough to solve our problem?”

“No.” Ellie looked downhearted, her spirits so low that she might have started doodling in the dirt if we’d been alone. “I spoke to Mr. Allen over the phone yesterday, when he arrived in the northern capital, and he said that ‘the Sealed Archive seems far more important than ever before. The life might have gone out of it, but the books it contains are irreplaceable.’ The Royal Academy canceled classes all the way until the normal winter vacation, so I have plenty of time, but I just don’t know.”

Carlotta quietly raised an emaciated hand. Her eyes flashed with intelligence as she said, “Would you consider trying a Primavera formula? The city of water once had a Great Tree of its own, so the spells of its rulers might have some effect. If you agree, I would be happy to provide you with—”

“I-Is, um, this what you mean?” The little blonde maid casually closed her left hand, and another ancient formula appeared in the air.

Carlotta and I froze, demanding an explanation with our silence.

“It was in the notes Mr. Allen gave me. But even this formula didn’t do the trick.”

I fought in the city of water myself, and I don’t doubt Allen could have made a good copy. But just up and assigning it to one of his students? That’s ridiculous! If he’d written a paper on it, the university would have given him his own lab on the spot! A little secrecy wouldn’t— But no. This is Allen all over. He’s been sharing everything he knows with us since we were all students together.

While I developed a headache, Carlotta let out an embarrassed chuckle. “I see that the Emissary of the Water Dragon is all that I’ve heard and more,” she said.

“He insists on calling himself ‘ordinary’ and gives us no end of trouble,” I noted. “Not that I don’t respect him.”

If the principe’s spell formulae can’t solve our problem, what can?

“Ellie,” I said, “have you heard that elders of the long-lived races will be coming here from the west? Why don’t you stay the course until they arrive?”

“B-But then...” The angelic little maid hesitated, looking just like we always did when we failed to live up to Allen’s expectations. I couldn’t get her in my lab at the university fast enough.

Carlotta, who had listened to our exchange in silence, drew a scrap of paper from her bag and proffered it to Ellie.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What’s this?”

“I meant to deliver this to Mr. Allen personally,” said the genius who had glimpsed the deepest secrets of the dreadful false Saint and nearly lost her life as a result, “but I think this is where we Carniens should make our stand. This formula is associated with the cult of the Great Moon.”

Ellie and I gave a start. That was the last name we had expected to hear.

“The founders of the House of Primavera and cult of the Great Moon were comrades in arms, apparently,” Carlotta explained. “I found a piece of their formulae in an old tome I collected. My theory is that it’s a botanical spell created in a far-eastern land during the age of gods. I haven’t even told Lynne about it.”

Does that mean this is new information? And we’re the first people in the city—no, the kingdom—to hear about it?

“Wh-What should I do with this?” a flustered Ellie asked me as she took the paper with her handkerchief.

There’s only one thing to say at a time like this.

I clasped the young maid’s hands in mine. “Let’s give it a try! Nothing ventured, nothing gained! And we have the strategic barrier that the headmaster and the professor grumbled so much about putting up for us! We can’t cause much damage!”

“Y-Yes’m!”

We might just have made a breakthrough.

I swear, Allen, this time I’ll pay you back for all you’ve done—for me and this little angel both.

✽

“Allen, it looks like the train from the royal capital is running a little late due to bad weather,” said my sister, who wore a purple sweater and a long skirt under her cloak. “I was hoping to see Felicia and Anko, but we’d better get to our own platform soon.”

“True. You have a point.” I nodded, looking away. I glimpsed Lily’s trunk and white hat lying at my feet.

The beautiful redbrick station bustled with activity. Crowds came and went, while attendants scampered up ladders, chalking service updates on an enormous blackboard. Apparently another snowfall had begun, although it hadn’t reached the northern capital yet. Another accurate forecast from Tina, who had remained at the Howard mansion with Lydia and the children; only so many of us could fit in a car at one time.

We’d better hurry up and search Shiki before the weather impacts griffin flights. I wonder how far Romy and Mina have gotten with those supplies they carried out this morning. Oh, and I hope Stella and Lily haven’t run into trouble. They said they were going to buy snacks, but they’ve been gone a long time.

Excessive concern for my sister had diverted my thoughts into an endless string of worries by the time her dainty finger prodded my cheek.

“Oh, honestly! Wipe that gloomy look off your face.”

“But Caren, what if—”

She tugged my scarf with a wheedling look that said, “It’s awfully cold.”

Oh, all right.

Once she had won my consent, Caren’s ears and tail stood tall along with the rest of her. “I’ll be going to the university next year, remember.”

“I haven’t forgotten. But your big brother will never stop worrying.” I dropped my voice to a whisper as I removed my scarf and wound it around Caren’s neck. “The professor appointed me to deal with Rill, but we need to handle the Alvern business with care. Try to put it off until I get back to the royal capital.”

“I will,” she whispered back. “Only...”

“Only what?”

She nuzzled her little head against my chest. I offered no resistance, and soon she pulled back slightly, burying her mouth in my scarf and sulking like she had when we were children. “Do you mind sharing a house name with me?”

“Of course not!” I said. “The thought never crossed my mind.”

Deep-rooted prejudice made it virtually impossible for beastfolk to acquire new house names or titles in the kingdom. Not even Allen the Shooting Star had gotten that honor, much less any of our chieftains. In all the time since the War of the Dark Lord, Princess Carina Wainwright’s lover, the Silver Wolf, might have been the sole exception. Caren was a cut above her peers—even allowing for my familial bias—and I had every confidence that she could make her own way, but I felt equally certain she could reach even greater heights as an Alvern. At the same time, the name would expose her to unspeakable hatred and envy. Would that really be the best choice for my sister? That was one question I couldn’t answer yet.

“No one prays for your happiness as much as I do,” I said, patting Caren’s head a little roughly and lifting her bag. “It matters more to me than my own.”

“Jeez. At least try to tie for world’s happiest person—with your lovable little sister!” Caren’s tone was sharp, but I could see her tail wagging. She set off with a spring in her step, looking back at me over her shoulder. “Still, I’ll content myself with that. For now, anyway.”

“Hmm?” I gave her a puzzled look. But before I could do more, our companions returned clutching paper sacks.

“Mr. Allen, Caren,” called Stella, looking fetching in a white sweater, identical to Caren’s except for the color, and a long azure skirt.

“It looks like the train from the royal capital is almost here!” added Lily, who had made no changes to her usual attire.

Oh, good. Felicia and Anko won’t miss Caren and Lily, then.

I took out my pocket watch and compared it to the times chalked on the board.

They might even have time to catch up.

I glanced at Caren, who wore a tender expression as she listened to Stella explain the snacks she’d bought her, then picked up the maid’s white hat. “Lily, I’ll carry your luggage to the train.”

“H-Huh? O-Oh, I can do that. I am a maid, remember?”

“At the moment,” I said, “you are Lady Lily Leinster, envoy to the Lalannoy Republic.”

After a moment of uncharacteristic indecision, the older girl indicated with a look that she wanted me to place the hat on her head of lovely scarlet locks. I complied with all due courtesy, and mana set her floral hair clip flashing.

“W-Well, if you insist.” Lily blushed and puffed out her ample chest. “Kindly see to it.”

“I most certainly shall,” I replied. “If the great and powerful in the royal capital find fault with anything, you may tell them that Allen of the wolf clan is entirely to blame.”

“Not in a million years! I’ll make a point to sing your praises,” the maid crowed, with a wicked look that put even Lydia to shame, and set off jauntily toward the platforms, clutching her paper sack.

Hang on. Is it me, or did I just make things worse for myself?

I scratched my cheek and hefted a suitcase.

Stella gave Caren a hug. “Listen—”

“Don’t you dare say you’re coming too.” My sister interrupted the student council president, anticipating her tendency to hold herself personally responsible. “It sounds like the academy hasn’t held classes since the apostles attacked the royal capital, so we’ll have that much longer to wait before we need to worry about passing the reins to the next student council. I can handle anything that comes up without you, and I’ll let you know as soon as I need your opinion on something!”

“Call me even if you don’t,” Stella said with some reluctance. “I’ll let everyone at our house in the capital know you’re coming.”

“Yes, yes.”

“One ‘yes’ is enough.”

The girls touched foreheads and shared a smile.

Caren couldn’t ask for a better best friend. Actually, make that “friends.”

The whistle of an arriving train filled the station.

“We’d better get moving,” I said. “Our gifted head clerk and a most respectable feline have adventured all the way here, and we ought to be waiting to welcome them.”

We left the station building just as the train, coated in the grime of its long journey, pulled in beside the unroofed platform. The overcast sky seemed poised to shower us with snow at any moment. Passengers filed from the car doors, baggage in hand. Cheers of reunion and drunkards’ shouts drifted toward us.

Lily thoughtfully stroked her chin. “Hmm... There are an awful lot of people here.”

“I should have asked Lynne and Ellie for Felicia’s seat number,” I said.

“Mr. Allen, we’ll go check the rear cars. Please wait with the luggage,” Stella said briskly and strode off with Lily and Caren in tow before I could stop her. I was glad to see how much more assertive she had become since I’d first met her.

“Now, where could Felicia be?” I asked myself, setting the bags on the platform and looking around. A train bound for the royal capital seemed to be taking on spellstones for its motive orb, building power.

We might have less time than I—

“A-Allen!”

A small, bespectacled girl with light-chestnut hair emerged from a deluxe car at the front of the train, waving vigorously in my direction. Ellie, Lynne, and the company maids must have arranged for her to travel in style. For some reason I couldn’t fathom, she wore a white Leinster military uniform with a matching hat. And there was Anko’s black feline figure, perched on her small suitcase. The outfit was obviously calculated to draw attention.

And that means...

I sensed a faint presence and turned my gaze to the crowd ahead. Several company maids of my acquaintance bobbed their heads to me before fading into the press of people. They had guarded Felicia until she met up with us and planned, I supposed, to ride straight back to the royal capital on the outgoing train. Our head clerk was certainly well loved.

The bespectacled girl raced over to me the moment her feet touched the platform, evidently elated to be traveling solo.

“Felicia, you needn’t run so—”

“I’m f-fi—”

Her interruption broke off in a squeak as, true to form, she tripped. I caught her before she fell, even casting a levitation spell on her hat as it went flying off her head. Anko, naturally above such trifles, remained unmoved.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, catching her hat in my free hand.

“N-No. Thank you.” She pulled away from me, fidgeting in embarrassment, and let her gaze wander in search of a distraction. Her mouth, never at a loss during a business negotiation or when making a proposal to me, did nothing but falter. “And, that is, thank you for, um, my father and—”

Another squeak escaped Felicia as Anko hopped onto her head, meowing encouragement.

How odd. Anko never deigns to ride anyone but Lydia and me, except sometimes Teto. Did they make friends on the long ride?

While I pondered, Felicia responded, “Y-Yes! I kn-know that!” before nodding to and then hugging Anko. She seemed determined to hide behind the cat as she declared:

“H-Here I am!”

“Here you are,” I repeated slowly, unsure how else to respond.

Felicia had always been sickly, and after joining the company, she had gone out even less than before. Yet she had come all the way to the northern capital to see me. That, at least, was cause for celebration. As for the letter—which was in her bag, to judge by its mana—I would worry about that once I’d read it.

“And I’m glad you’ve come,” I said, putting Felicia’s hat back where it belonged. Anko teleported onto my left shoulder. “I hope you’ll tell me all about what’s been happening in the royal capital while I’ve been away.”

“O-Of course!” The little bespectacled girl clenched her fists and jumped for joy. Naturally, her bosom—considerably more developed than Stella’s and Caren’s, although they were all the same age—jumped as well, conspiring with her other charms to make her the center of attention.

You know, Felicia really ought to be more aware of her appearance. I’d better have a word with Emma and Sally about it when we get back to the royal capital.

“But that aside,” I said, ignoring an exasperated meow from Anko, “why are you dressed for—”

“Mr. Allen, Felicia,” a voice called.

“Oh, so you were in a deluxe car,” said another.

“Stella! Caren!” Felicia cried, and the trio who had built such trust sharing a room at the Royal Academy threw their arms around each other.

Lily stood a short distance away, chatting merrily with the company maids who had blended into the crowd. Our eyes met for a moment, and she sent me a hand signal. Evidently, they would provide additional security on the way to the royal capital. I worked a wind spell to tell them, “Thank you. I hope you’ll do your best for my sister and Lily,” and they proudly thumped their chests in reply.

“I’m so glad I got to see you,” Caren said, smoothing out Felicia’s hair with her hands, blissfully ignorant of just how overprotective her brother was being. “Lily and I are leaving for the royal capital on the next train.”

“What?” Felicia started. “A-Are you really?”

“Are you feeling all right after coming such a long way?” asked Stella. “We have a car waiting to take us to the house, but I can call a griffin if you’re not feeling well.”

Felicia laughed. “Thanks, but I’ve never felt better! Look, I can even— H-Huh?” She displayed her unfounded confidence by attempting a pirouette, only to stumble and topple toward me.

I caught her by the shoulders and said with feeling, “May I suggest that, as company president, you play to your strengths, Miss Felicia Fosse?”

“G-Good idea. Sorry about— Wait, president?” Felicia blinked her big eyes in confusion, still leaning on me for support. She looked over her shoulder at me and—

“Allen,” said Caren.

“Felicia,” said Stella.

“Give each other some space!” they snapped in unison.

“R-Right!” we responded, equally in sync.

“Why did you come in your full military uniform, anyway?” my sister demanded.

“It becomes you, of course, but you must know it stands out,” added the noblewoman.

“What?” said the bespectacled girl. “Well, I asked Ellie, Lynne, and the company maids, and the vote was unanimous. Oh! I brought a spare in black too!”

They had no end of things to talk about. My own thoughts turned to a girl who must have been drawing up weather forecasts for the Galois region back at the mansion.

I bet Tina misses Ellie and Lynne.

Then a steam whistle screeched, and Roland Walker, who had driven us to the station, appeared. He adjusted his monocle before making a punctilious report to his lord’s platinum-haired daughter.

“Lady Stella, it appears that the train bound for the royal capital is ready to depart.”

“Thank you for telling me, Roland,” she replied.

The young butler bowed deeply and withdrew. I saw a raging blizzard behind his eyes in the brief instant they passed over me. That look didn’t strike me as a coincidence. On the other hand, I couldn’t think of anything I had done to offend him.

“Sounds like it’s time.” Caren picked up her bag from my feet, retied my scarf, and gave her best friends one last hug. “Stella, Felicia, keep an eye on Allen for me—a close one! I don’t want him working himself to death. And watch out for Lydia and Tina! They’ll both try to slip into his bed.”

“Yes, I know,” said Stella.

“Yes, ma’am,” added Felicia.

I stewed in indignant silence. Did they imagine I had no regard for my own well-being? Lydia and Cheryl pushed themselves far harder than I ever had. The ring and bracelet on my right hand flashed mockingly, but I ignored them.

“The rest is in your hands,” I said, bowing to the scarlet-haired maid who had just rejoined us. “I’ll see you again in the royal capital.”

“Yup!” she lilted. “And I’ll make sure there’s a huge reward waiting for you.”

“I...I couldn’t possibly—”

“Oh yes you could!” Lily clinked her bracelet against mine and cheerfully tapped her hair clip. My heart leapt in spite of myself.

I don’t call that fair play.

The maid eyed my face with satisfaction, took a suitcase in her left hand and my sister’s hand in her right, and strode off toward their train. “Come on, Caren! Let’s get moving. You’ve got so many secrets about Allen to tell me on our way!”

“I’d be happy to share,” said Caren, “but you can’t get something for nothing, Lily. Do you think you can pay my price?”

Lily let out an ominous chuckle. “I thought you might say that, and I came prepared! You know Lydia’s secret collection of Allen video orbs? Well...”

My head ached. Perhaps I picked the wrong person to entrust with my dear little sister, I thought, sighing as I watched the pair go on their merry way.

“Stella,” I said, “what do you say we drive straight back to the mansion once we’ve seen them off? We’ll have a hard time keeping Felicia steady on her feet once the snow starts falling, even with a roof over our heads.”

“Excuse me, Allen? Just what do you mean by that?” The bespectacled girl glowered, but I had only spoken the truth.

The noblewoman looked pensive, then swiftly produced a map of the city from her small bag and handed it to me. She had penned a circle around one building—a clothing store, I thought.

“What would you say to a stop at Ethertraut on our way?” she asked. “Felicia needs clothes and a few daily necessities. Uncle Euni isn’t supposed to arrive at the house until after nightfall, so we have plenty of time. All three of us can ride in the back of the car.”

“Stella? Are you sure this isn’t more about what you want?” The bespectacled girl eyed her friend with suspicion.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roland reel as though he had just taken a bullet, although I couldn’t think what in the conversation could have shocked him. But the unfazed Stella Howard eagerly awaited my response with hope in her eyes. In the end, I raised my hands in capitulation and picked up a suitcase. I couldn’t bear to let one of my students down.

“All right. We’ll stop for some shopping at— What did you call it? Ethertraut? We can’t forget to buy something for Lydia and Tina either. I assume you’ll help keep Felicia under control in the shop? Now, we’d better move closer to the train.”

“Of course!” A lock of the noblewoman’s hair swayed with delight.

“Allen? Stella? What are you getting at?” grumbled the sour-faced head clerk as we started walking.

A steam whistle rang out in the northern air.

✽

“Stella! Sir! You’re late!”

Tina welcomed us at the entrance of the Howard mansion, wearing a sweater-and-skirt ensemble to match Stella’s. She had evidently been waiting a long time, and I could hear the note of protest in her voice clearly, even through the car window. Had something happened in our absence?

The monocled, taciturn butler brought the car to a halt in perfect position and immediately got out to open the rear door.

“Thank you, Roland,” said Stella.

“Thank you very much.” I followed her out of the car, carrying a large, floral-printed cloth bag. Anko occupied my shoulder as though by natural right.

“Th-Thank you.” Felicia let out several groans as she narrowly succeeded in wrestling her suitcase out of the car without help. She had just been gushing about the rare goods at Ethertraut, but she seemed to be suffering a delayed attack of nerves. She immediately tried to hide her face with her hat, but I thought the attempt backfired, if the Leinster and Howard maids on duty surreptitiously activating their video orbs was anything to go by.

On the other hand, Roland never took his eyes off Stella, who said, “There’s nothing to worry about, Felicia. Just make yourself at home. Okay?”

“O-Okay. I’ll try.”

The future Duchess Howard watched her friend rally with a tender look, then handed her younger sister a parcel of fine paper. It contained delectable pastry. “We’re no later than we planned to be. Here. We got this for you.”

“I know this mark! You went to Ethertraut without me?! No fair! I wanted to— Wait. Were you just sitting with Mr. Allen in the back seat?”

“It’s good to see you again too, Tina. Have Lydia and the children kept out of trouble?” I asked, diverting my pupil before she realized the truth. The children might be napping, but Lydia’s absence surprised me. She had indirectly reproached me all morning.

“The kids are sound asleep in their room,” Tina said. “Lydia is entertaining company.”

“Company?” I echoed in unison with Felicia, who clung to my sleeve. Stella looked thoughtful.

Is the under-duke here already? I don’t see a car or carriage.

At that point, Tina noticed the bespectacled girl and the feline familiar, and she broke into a grin. “Oh, Felicia, Anko, come in. You must be tired after coming all this way. Wait. What are you dressed like you’re in a Leinster army for?”

“Th-Thank you for having me, Tina. And I have r-reasons more profound than the Water Dragon Deep. It’s just that—”

“You look great! Really dashing! That’s the same as what you wore in the southern capital except for the color, isn’t it? Oh, wow! You’re making me jealous. I should ask Lynne for—”

Stella clapped her hands. “So, who is visiting?” she asked her sister, placing an arm around her friend in danger of fainting.

“Oh, right!” Tina clapped her little hands in a perfect mirror of her older sister and jumped on the spot. There was something impish about the way she smiled at me.

I have a bad feeling about this.

“Uncle Euni flew in ahead of schedule on a military griffin. He’s talking with Lydia in my greenhouse room now. I don’t like the sound of it, so, sir, you have work to do!”

I cast a spell of silence and opened the door a fraction. Immediately, the air felt tense. Across a table carved from a single piece of wood, which had presumably been carried in for the occasion, a massive, platinum-haired man in azure finery faced a scarlet-tressed beauty dressed for a sword fight. At first glance, they appeared to be talking amiably—but on unsettling topics, judging by the snippets I caught with wind magic. The last thing I wanted to do was join them.

“I see,” said the man, who looked very much like Duke Walter, stroking his chin. “So Duke Leinster does mean to run tracks into Atlas and use it as a stepping stone into the other four northern principalities. And perhaps to the commonwealth and the Thirteen Free Cities, eventually? Lady Lydia, has he mentioned anything to you?”

“I haven’t the faintest notion what long games my father might be playing,” came the reply, “but the planned railroad construction in Atlas is progressing ahead of schedule. Air routes will naturally follow in the near future. It is my opinion, Under-duke Euni Howard, that people flock to easily accessible places where the gold flows freely.”

What could have gotten them onto this subject? I wouldn’t have expected virtual strangers to discuss it so freely. In any case, I’d better wait in another room until the whole thing blows o—

Before I could turn and signal to the girls and Anko, who were hiding behind me, two fiery sparks struck my ring and bracelet. Lydia’s eyes flashed for a split second. “Stop hiding,” they counseled, “and get over here.”

How did she catch on so fast? I was really trying with that silencing spell. This is the problem with geniuses.

I heaved a little sigh and signaled the girls to prepare for the worst. The Howard sisters grinned ruefully, as if to say, “That’s life, I suppose.” Felicia panicked, latched on to my right arm, and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t relish dealing with strange men at the best of times.

“Do I understand you correctly?” Under-duke Euni drummed his thick fingers on the table. “You would give me to understand that the Under-ducal House of Howard would benefit from taking action before the Yustinians formally propose a railway from their imperial capital to our northern one?”

“I am merely a duke’s daughter,” answered Lydia. “I have only told you as much as I know.”

“Hmm...”

Oh dear. She’s already trying to make things more dramatic than they need to be! Is this revenge?! Payback for leaving her at the mansion?! She sounded like she understood when she agreed to wait for a message from Anna. But at least there’s a silver lining: Felicia is too busy trying not to faint to pay attention to what they’re saying.

Stella threw the door wide, chuckling at my grimace. I quietly lifted my spell of silence as she entered the room and said, “Uncle Euni, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Oh! Stella!”

The under-duke leapt to his feet and strode toward us. Even at close quarters, he really was the spitting image of Duke Walter. If not for his lack of a beard, I might not have been able to tell them apart.

“No, it’s my fault,” he told his niece, scratching his head for effect. “I was out on an inspection when my car broke down, you see. I’m only lucky a nearby base kept griffins. Walter likes the latest gadgets, but sometimes they’re too good to be true! Lady Lydia was kind enough to keep me company until you got back.”

Not a hint of negativity marred his hearty smile. It probably took such a sunny disposition to govern Galois, the kingdom’s northernmost province and a former Yustinian possession.

Tina pushed Felicia and me forward, and Stella threw in an introduction.

“Mr. Allen, Felicia. Allow me to present my uncle Euni.”

I nodded and sent the bespectacled girl glued to my right arm a gentle breeze along with my thoughts.

It’s all right. I’m with you.

Once I’d felt her hands slowly withdraw, I bowed deeply to the platinum-haired colossus. “Allen of the wolf clan of the eastern capital, at your service.”

“A-And I’m Felicia Fosse.”

“Euni Howard,” he replied. “I’m an ‘under-duke,’ whatever that means. My brother the ‘war god’ foisted the land he won off the empire on me, and I’ve been at my wit’s end about what to do with it since. Oh, and no ‘Your Highness,’ please. I’d much rather you call me by name. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to put you up in Seesehr the other day. I’ve heard about the business in Shiki.” A massive hand thumped me on the left shoulder. I endured the pain as Under-duke Euni grinned. “I’ve been wanting to meet the new Shooting Star for a while now. And I’ve heard all about the wonders Miss Fosse works. Allen & Co. has gotten to be a big name, even on the northern frontier!”

“I...I’m honored to hear you say so,” I replied despite feeling overwhelmed. Felicia, meanwhile, squeaked and would have swooned if the Howard sister hadn’t caught her in time.

“Uncle Euni!” Stella protested. “I wish you wouldn’t scare Felicia like that!”

“I insist you keep your voice down!” shouted Tina.

The bold general, defender of the north in Duke Walter’s absence, took it in stride. “Oh, forgive me,” he said. “My wife is always warning me I’m too loud. Now, have a seat.”

No sooner had we lowered ourselves into free chairs than a crisp “By your leave” preceded Mrs. Walker’s entrance at the head of a group of maids. They neatly laid the table with hot tea and pastries, then receded as smoothly as they had come, like the ebb and flow of the tide.

Now that’s hospitality for you. I must tell Lily next time I see her.

Under-duke Euni added sugar to his tea and stirred it using a spoon engraved with a wolf-cub motif. “I got the reports you and the professor sent from the imperial capital and checked with my brother on the eastern front. The Ducal—and Under-ducal—House of Howard will help you to thwart the church’s designs on the ruined Shiki archive in any way we can. That includes searching for my sister-in-law’s diary, which you mentioned might contain notes on the Shiki region. Walter gave me a message for you: ‘In the unlikely event that you do discover her diary, handle it with care.’”

Meaning he won’t stand for anyone reading it but me and those I approve.

Duke Walter Howard remained hesitant to share his suspicions that Duchess Rosa had been assassinated with Stella and Tina.

“I’ve yet to hear of church agents crossing our northern border, or into Shiki either.” The spoon stopped, then made that unmistakable porcelain clink. The under-duke arched his thick eyebrows. “Still, are you sure there are valuable ruins in that backwater? I dispatched a sizable survey team myself when the Yustinians ceded it to us out of the blue, and they reported a stretch of dense forest without any valuable resources to speak of. It’s so bad that the chieftains of the small clans that live there have already sent me requests to resettle somewhere else. Did you make any new discoveries from the air?”

“Unfortunately not,” I said. “The Leinsters’ head maid, Anna, is currently leading a party to establish a base camp.”

To be frank, I had assumed that Anna would accompany us all the way to the northern capital. I had admitted as much after dinner the previous night. Lydia, with a full glass of wine in one hand and a smirk on her face, had revealed the reason: “Maybe she’s avoiding Shelley? She is the only person who’s ever out-maided her.”

But enough of that.

I turned to my kindhearted student who had joined Stella’s efforts to resuscitate Felicia on the couch. “Tina, what do you make of the weather in Galois?”

“I think it will hold for about ten days. After that...” She slowly shook her platinum head.

So that’s when we can expect the white northern winter to roll in.

I gave a small nod to Lydia, who was sitting placidly beside me, and turned back to Under-duke Euni. “We will begin our search for the diary here tomorrow and all set out as soon as our preparations are complete.”

“Very well. I’ll send you some of my own picked troops as well. I’d like to join in myself, but, well...” The general frowned for the first time that day, and resignation filled his eyes.

The Howard sisters cheerfully supplied an explanation while they thoughtfully set aside tea and pastry for Felicia.

“Uncle Euni can’t stand up to our aunt.”

“And everyone says he has a bad habit of putting off paperwork.”

“You don’t say,” I said slowly.

So even the courageous Under-duke Euni Howard has met his match!

Felicia took her tea in sips, like some timid woodland creature. I gave her a “perhaps our head clerk should stop overworking herself” look, which kindled an indignant flame in the eyes behind her spectacles. She pouted back at me.

The under-duke cleared his throat several times, loudly. “Well, do as you see fit. Shiki will be your land on paper in any case, sooner or later.”

“Pardon?” I gaped, and I wasn’t alone. Tina’s and Felicia’s synchronized “Huh?” sounded as stunned as I felt.

What does he mean by—

Clink! Lady Lydia Leinster and Lady Stella Howard returned their cups to their saucers. Both wore dazzling smiles.

“Your Highness...”

“Uncle...”

“O-Oh!” Under-duke Euni gave a start and caved to their pressure. “I...I didn’t say a thing. No, not a peep out of me!”

This must be how he talks when he’s not trying to sound— Forget that! I have bigger problems!

“Felicia, aren’t you carrying an important message for Allen?” said the Lady of the Sword, hoping to bury the truth before I could pursue it.

“You’d better deliver it before you forget,” pressed our resident saint.

Wh-When did they learn this level of teamwork?!

“R-Right!” The head clerk put her hat back on and hastily drew a letter from her bag. Then she marched awkwardly up to me, the magnificent feline familiar following at her feet.

Anko doesn’t lavish this sort of attention on just anyone.

I didn’t know when I had seen the eyes behind her spectacles so nervous. Then an even more potent thrill showed through, and Felicia Fosse, the Dark Lord’s messenger, proffered me the plain envelope. “H-Here, Allen! A letter from the west!”

“Yes, I can see that. Thank you for bringing it. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” I stood as well, took the letter in both hands, and bowed.

Her mission accomplished, a flush colored Felicia’s cheeks. She brought her hands to her mouth and giggled with satisfaction. She had always been frail, for all that her health had improved recently, and she had ended up withdrawing from the Royal Academy. This trip must truly have been an adventure for her.

Hopefully it will bolster her self-confidence as well, I thought as I nodded slightly to Lydia and Anko. The enchanted sword Cresset Fox slid a smidgen out of its scabbard, and a potent barrier went up with me at its center. The majestic feline familiar sprang into Felicia’s arms to provide protection.

All was in readiness. I nodded to my breathless audience and carefully unsealed the envelope.

At once, a veritable gale—a vestige of the great spell Dividing Wind—kicked up inside the barrier. I hastily multi-cast wind-resistant barriers of my own and tampered with the spell to weaken it. The ring and bracelet on my right hand reflected emerald light at wild angles, creating otherworldly visions on the walls and ceiling. The Howard sisters and Felicia murmured, entranced.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“I felt this mana in the city of craft.”

“Oh, wow.”

The under-duke gasped, “Inconceivable.”

Lydia, the only one of us to keep her cool, gave me a look that said, “Get those things off your hand now.” Would that we could all be so fearless.

The diminutive Dark Lord must have rigged the spell to surprise me, pointedly keeping it simple enough for me to meddle with. A vision of a little girl cackling with laughter made my head ache as I studied the letter.

I beg your pardon?

A profound sigh escaped me as my head sank into my hands.

“A-Allen? Are you all right?!” Felicia panicked, still clutching Anko.

Tina and Stella couldn’t hide their anxiety either.

“S-Sir?”

“What does Rill say?”

Lydia remained silent and seated, but she made no effort to conceal her suspicion. Although our pact had weakened, it still told her just how rattled I felt.

“She could see her way to clearing up Lady Elna’s misunderstanding about the Dark Lord’s mana lingering in the church where Arthur disappeared,” I said. “She even lays out a concrete method for doing so. However...”

“H-However?” Felicia, Tina, and Stella pressed as I hesitated, dropping my gaze to the letter once more.

I don’t know about this, Rill.

Lydia slid out of her seat...and snatched the letter in the blink of an eye, ignoring my “Hey!” as she read it through.

“Well, well.” She dug a finger into my cheek, wearing a mischievous smile she usually reserved for when we were alone. “This just got a lot more interesting. So, what are you going to do?”

“Well...” I floundered. “You and Stella can stand in for me as—”

“Not happening.”

“No, thank you.”

I groaned, rejected before I got a chance to finish.

Tina had been watching in silence. Now she raised her hand high. “Sir, tell Felicia and me what’s going on!”

“Y-Yes, please,” added the bespectacled girl.

“And me as well, of course,” the under-duke chimed in.

I retrieved the letter from a delighted-looking Lydia and carefully refolded it. “In exchange for her cooperation, the Dark Lord of everything west of Blood River wants me...to mediate a formal peace between humankind and the demonfolk. Under-duke Euni, fate must have placed you here. Would you care to take my place?”

The big man roared with laughter. “Not on your life! I’ve got too much to live for—a wife I couldn’t love more, a daughter who’s never been cuter, and a son who will be the most dashing man in the kingdom someday. But thank you. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

Oh dear. His Highness is clearly more like the professor than not! He’ll make me do all the work—and as if that weren’t bad enough, he’ll tell the story to anyone who’ll listen! There...there must be someone who will save me from—

“That’s amazing, sir!”

“You’re the only man for the job, Mr. Allen.”

“Well, that should be obvious.”

The noblewomen accepted the news as if nothing could be more natural. Anko added a drowsy yawn.

“F-Felicia, do you have any other message to— Felicia?” Grasping at straws, I turned to the silent, bespectacled girl, only to discover an alarming change in her. Felicia’s slight form swayed; then came a squeak and a swoon.

“Whoa there!” I caught her, thinking that much the same thing had happened at our first meeting. I laid her on the couch, and Lydia and Stella bent over her, diagnosing her condition.

“Looks like extreme stress and mana exposure,” the former concluded.

“I think she’ll wake up before long,” added the latter.

I breathed a sigh of relief and sank onto the couch beside Felicia. I did mean to keep my promise to Allen the Shooting Star and Linaria—to visit the legend’s grave—but I couldn’t make up my mind to do it immediately. On the other hand, given the situation in Lalannoy, I couldn’t afford to drag my feet. Quite the conundrum.

Under-duke Euni stood up and strode toward the door. “I think I’ll start back to Seesehr; my wife can be a terror when I stay out too late. By the by, Allen...”

I looked up, pushing my mentally fatigued body, and waited for the under-duke to continue. When he did, his voice was grave, and he wore a stern expression reminiscent of Duke Walter.

“Have you decided who you’re going to marry? If not, my darling daughter is—”

“Out of the question!” three noblewomen snapped in unison amid an eruption of scarlet, white, and azure mana.

Felicia, meanwhile, started awake. “Huh?! Wh-Wha-What’s going on?”

Lydia glared at the under-duke. “I wish Your Highness would confine yourself to jokes that are funny.”

“Don’t think I won’t tell auntie, uncle,” Stella added, likewise incensed by the careless remark.

Then Tina blurted out, “M-Mr. Allen is mine!” and their ire changed targets. Lydia and Stella started weaving spells, smiles still plastered on their faces.

Supreme magic in the greenhouse? That’s a recipe for disaster.

The under-duke roared with laughter. “I’d heard the rumors, but you really don’t have it easy! Best of luck to you! As for extending the railway north of Seesehr, I’ll consult my brother and keep an open mind. I expect Allen & Co. to pitch in once work is underway. I look forward to working with you.”

“I beg your pardon?! Wait just a—”

The door closed with a thud. Fiery plumes and flakes of ice began to fill the air.

“You’ve got some nerve trying to slip that past us, Tiny,” said Lydia.

“Tina,” said Stella, “we need to talk.”

“Th-The early bird gets the worm!” came the response. “My comrade explained that to me most emphatically! I’m not in this to lose! Not even to either of you!”

Where will it end with them?

Felicia seemed lost, but that didn’t stop her from tugging on my left arm. “A-Allen, um, wh-what was that about extending the railway?”

“I know it’s nearly dinnertime,” I said, dismantling the girls’ spells one after another, “but what would you say to a relaxing dip in the hot springs after your long journey? I’ve found this an exhausting day myself.”

✽

I couldn’t suppress an embarrassing moan as I sank into the spacious bathtub, leaving my towel on its rim. I must have been more worn out than I’d realized. “Don’t relax too much and fall asleep in there, Felicia,” Allen had teased me when we’d split up on the way in, and it really did feel dangerously comfortable.

I took a dazed look around. The great, steam-shrouded bath was nothing short of magnificent. Hot spring water gushed from a marble spout carved into a courageous-looking wolf’s head. The large windows were quintuple-paned. One look was enough to tell me no expense had been spared on the stone walls, floor, and ceiling.

Looking at the construction, I wonder if they took inspiration from the baths in the city of water. I sure am glad I got Stella to cast a spell to stop my spectacles fogging up. But doesn’t Lydia want to join us?

The warmth and rhythmic sounds of the water were sapping the strength from my body.

Oh, I might really doze off.

Water sloshed nearby as someone got in next to me. Even as a fellow girl, I found my heart racing at the sight of her long platinum hair hanging wet and her perfectly proportioned figure. Was it me, or had Stella gotten way prettier?

My best friend let out an alluring sigh as she splashed water over her shoulders, then turned to scold me. “I know how good it feels, Felicia, but try to stay awake.”

“I...I’m not sleepy!” I hastily hauled my sinking body to the surface and got only a ladylike laugh for my pains.

O-Oh, give me a break!

I scooped up water in my hands to hide my embarrassment. “This is some place you’ve got here. I mean, what are the odds of finding a hot spring on the grounds?”

“My ancestors were awfully fond of it,” Stella said. “I remember my grandfather telling me that they only decided to build their house here after they found the spring.”

“Wow.”

No hotel in the royal capital advertised a hot spring as a selling point, although there were inns in the surrounding countryside that did. It might be worth looking into when I got back. I mean, how could there not be a demand for something that felt so perfectly—

“My eyes!” Tina’s scream echoed through the bath. “I got water in my eyes!” She was a good kid—cheerful, positive, and always willing to include me in a conversation.

I lowered my hands and was letting my skin acclimatize to the hot water when I felt my best friend’s gaze on me.

“C-Can I help you? You’re making me kind of embarrassed,” I said, unable to keep from hugging myself to cover up. Unlike either of my best friends, I was short and not even a little pretty.

The noblewoman—or “saint,” as people had supposedly started calling her with reverence—gave me a tender smile. “Hmm? Oh, I was just thinking how glad I am to have you here. The old you would never have considered taking such a long trip alone.”

“That’s...true, I guess. But I had Anko with me, and I was carrying an important letter.” I sank up to my mouth and touched my fingers to my cheeks.

Yes, the old me would have pleaded that she “c-couldn’t possibly” take a train north. She would never even have considered it. But I’d wanted to help—to make his life easier, whatever it took. The mean and, above all, kind wolf who had given me my own special place to belong and work deserved that much, even if he kept trying to promote me to president. I couldn’t fight like my best friends, Lydia, and the younger girls, but that only made me more determined to help Allen by growing the company. I felt that with all my soul. But at the same time, I wanted to do something for him personally and to hear him praise me for it.

I know I told Caren I didn’t feel like fighting for him, but I’m starting to wonder if I lied.

Stella’s knowing smile widened. “I’d like to take a vacation once things settle down, wouldn’t you? We’ll invite Caren too. And you can choose how we travel. You know, griffins are surprisingly comfortable once you get used to them.”

“You don’t have to mother me,” I grumbled.

“I don’t do it half as much as Caren.”

Our resident saint gave me a look that said, “I know just how you feel.” I let it go at that and put a lid on my growing feelings.

It’s better this way. For now.

Wet feet slapped on stone as a cheery Tina walked up, covering her chest with a towel. “What are you talking about? Let me join—”

Without finishing the sentence, she took off her towel and submerged her spotless body, keeping her distance from both of us.

“What is it, Tina?” Stella asked, confused.

“Is something wrong?” I added.

Wh-What’s gotten— Oh.

Her brooding, melancholy gaze lingered on my chest, which had gotten a little too big for comfort.

We never did get to take a bath together in the southern capital.

“I...I don’t believe it.” Tina stared down into the water with mounting despair. “This can’t be real. I mean, Lily I can understand. She’s six whole years older than me, and she has to be done growing. B-But...but Felicia only has two years on me, and s-seeing her dressed didn’t prepare me for... Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have Lynne and my comrade here! Or at least Caren!”

By the end, she was practically wailing. Bubbles rose as she sank into the depths.

“U-Umm...”

“Ignore her,” Stella said with the weight of sisterly experience. “Think of it as a condition that flares up now and then.”

Even Tina will do some growing by the time she’s our age. Won’t she?

“By the way,” Stella continued, “what are your plans?”

“Huh?” I gave my friend a confused look, other doubts forgotten.

“You’ve carried out your duty to deliver Rill’s letter. Will you rest here for a day or two and then go back to the royal capital? We could assign you a guard of maids for the return trip.”

“Oh,” I said. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it.”

After the letter had arrived and I’d been appointed its delivery girl for who-knew-what reason, my only thought had been “I’ve got to get this to Allen!” But there was nothing keeping me in the northern capital now that I had.

“Aren’t you coming to Shiki with us?” asked a newly revived Tina, coiling her sopping hair around her hand and looking nonplussed. I felt a twinge in my chest.

“Be reasonable.” Stella broke the awkward silence. “The region is practically unexplored, and of course we’ll be camping. What if Felicia falls ill?”

“She’ll be fine!” Tina asserted. “Chitose’s bunnies found that natural hot spring, remember?!”

“But that doesn’t mean—”

The door at the top of the stone steps burst open, and the steam began to clear for a moment. A breathtaking beauty descended at a leisurely pace, her long, lustrous scarlet hair in a loose ponytail, and a towel wrapped around her slender figure. She grabbed a wooden bucket loaded with soap and shampoo, then shot us a glare.

“What a racket,” she said. “At least keep it down in the bath.”

“Lydia,” said Stella. “May I ask what kept you?”

“Oh!” Tina exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you were s-seeing Mr. Allen behind our backs!”

The Howard sisters’ suspicions failed to ruffle the Lady of the Sword. She flapped her hand and touched her bangs, so elegant I felt my heart beat faster. “We were only exchanging information and opinions. Do I need to remind you we sent Romy and Mina ahead to Shiki this morning? And then there was Anko’s suggestion.”

“Anko...”

“...Had a suggestion?”

Lydia left the sisters’ question unanswered, standing beside the bath and looking me in the eye. “I’ll cut to the chase. Felicia.”

“Y-Yes?!” I scrambled up, wrapping myself in the towel I’d left on the edge of the tub.

The scarlet-haired noblewoman gave me a little tap on the forehead, like Allen always did. “Starting tomorrow, you go where we go. That includes Shiki.”

“What?!” Three startled cries echoed.

Huh? Come again? What?!

I staggered back into the bath and submerged nearly to my mouth.

“I can’t agree to that plan.” Stella sounded concerned. “Does Mr. Allen approve?”

“Of course he does,” said Lydia. “Not that he was happy about it.”

A-Allen too?! B-But I can’t fight. I’ll be deadweight.

My world started to spin, and strength deserted me.

“F-Felicia?! Y-You’d better get out of the bath!” Tina cried, joining Stella in helping me up.

“Save your complaints for Anko,” the scarlet-haired noblewoman continued, taking a nearby stool and drawing hot water from a faucet. “That cat won’t tell us anything except that it’s ‘necessary’ and there’s a good reason Felicia needs to visit the Shiki archive.”

None of us spoke. That majestic feline was an enigma—our trip together had made me keenly aware of that. A familiar was loyal to the sorcerer who commanded it and couldn’t stray far from their side. Anko did as it pleased. It could even communicate, up to a point, and I had no idea what to make of that. What could a creature of Anko’s powers possibly need me for?

“Anyway, our decision is final!” Lydia declared, freeing her scarlet hair. “We’re planning to enlist nearly every Howard and Leinster Maid Corps officer in the north, so relax.”

“R-Right,” I mumbled. This was one negotiation I wasn’t going to win, so I decided I might as well prepare for the worst. I took off my spectacles and splashed water on my cheeks a few times.

Much better!

Lydia gave me an amused look, then rounded on Tina. “Now that that’s out of the way, I see you haven’t changed, Tiny. I think even Lynne has you beat.”

“What?!” the girl squawked. “L-Lydia, d-don’t you know that some things are better left unsaid?”

Snow started to fill the air. Lydia responded with a display of consummate skill, evaporating each flake with a tiny plume of fire, and brought her index finger to her chin in a charming show of confusion. “Oh? But I only spoke the truth.”

“Th-That does it! I’ll make you rue those words! Down with the Church of Hogging Mr. Allen and its wicked founder! My comrade, Lynne, and Caren are with me in spirit, and with their aid, I’ll make today the day I finally be—”

Tina fell with a squeal, hit in the face by a ball of water as she waded furiously across the tub.

Did Lydia just cast a water spell?!

“You still have a long way to go.” The scarlet-haired noblewoman assumed a tender look, shrugged, and started lathering herself with soap.

Tina pouted, grumbling, “Mr. Allen spoils Lydia rotten,” as she sank into the bath. She reminded me of a little animal when she sulked.

“You’ll be fine, Felicia.” My best friend clasped my hand softly. “Tina, Lydia, and I are all here for you. And we’ll have Mr. Allen with us! I promise you’ll have nothing to worry about!”

“I know,” I said. “Thanks, Stella.”

Whatever else I do, I can’t let myself be a burden!

That resolution made, I hit myself with one more big splash of bathwater.

✽

Moonlight fell on Shiki through a blanket of dark night and icy mist. I, Aster Etherfield, prime apostle and Sage, squinted from atop a hill that commanded a sweeping view of the region and swung the staff in my left hand. The sleeves and hem of my coat flapped in a chill wind. Shadows raced across the land, soon relaying information.

A force several dozen strong has already established a base on the riverbank? And what are these things scampering about the forest?

“Conjured rabbits,” I muttered. “Howard agents, then. Do they imagine they can outsmart me? In any case, it doesn’t appear they’ve located the archive yet either.”

The damnable Alverns and Floral Heaven had thwarted my attempt to steal the first half of the Bibliophage’s forbidden tome in the imperial capital. Success would have advanced the plan considerably. Still, viewed in the cold light of reason, the battle had not gone so poorly for us. We had lost Io, a useful cat’s-paw, but we had also confirmed that the Hero was weakening. And we already had five of the eight great spells in our possession: Radiant Shield, Resurrection, Watery Grave, Falling Star, and Blaze of Ruin. We might yet obtain Quake Array, which the cult of the Great Moon had concealed. On the other hand...

I chuckled beneath my hood. Why bother, if we could only find the Shiki archive, with the seventh and final altar and the functional black gate that must serve to power it? Sacrificing Gerard Wainwright, stuffed with dragon bones and vestiges of five great spells, would suffice to realize the greater part of my ambition. And then—

“Prime Apostle Aster.”

A man in a hooded white robe emerged from the darkness behind me and knelt. Yz had replaced one of those traitors as sixth apostle. His body seemed to have adjusted to the traces of Falling Star, along with that other thing and the minor alterations that I had carried out personally. A good sign, although I had omitted Blaze of Ruin.

“Alicia reports that she will join us slightly later than expected,” he said. “Fine-tuning the sacrifice, Gerard Wainwright, is proving difficult and demands her full attention.”

What are that bungling ersatz Saint and that pitiful vampiress playing at?!

“And Régnier?” I demanded, unwilling to let annoyance keep me from vital information.

“I believe he has joined Apostle Isolde and others to root out a ‘rat’ infestation in the pontiff’s domain,” Yz replied. “I pray you will pardon my impertinence, but may I offer a suggestion?”

“You may.”

The former Lalannoyan leader raised his head. His hair had gone gray, and his cheeks writhed with spell formulae and icy scales. His eyes harbored seemingly bottomless depths of dark resolve and unseemly flattery. “Would you consider trusting me to eliminate the maids? I wish to distinguish myself in any way I can—to raise my standing and assure my son a speedy resurrection on that promised day when Her Holiness fully restores the great magic that will make that possible.”

The fool. The unutterable fool. How could he take that drivel seriously? Still, if he wishes to labor under his delusions, I might as well make him my pawn.

“I leave them to you,” I said, raising my right hand a fraction. “But take the defective key alive if you find him among them. He will serve as insurance for the plan.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you. My most sincere gratitude.” Yz ground his forehead into the dirt, actually weeping. The wretch.

“Give me North Star,” I said, ignoring my distaste.

“As you command.” Yz raised his head and proffered me the enchanted sword at his belt with both hands. The flower-shaped orb in its hilt shone with an unearthly light.

I extended my hand—and pulled back as Yz grunted. A bright ray had pierced the darkness and severed his right arm. North Star flew high into the air. I steadied myself and prepared to cast, only for a pall of brutal animosity to fall on me from above.

A sharp cry split the night, and a bespectacled woman—black-haired, dark-skinned, and wearing a red maid uniform—brought down a hammer so massive it seemed unfit for human hands, pulverizing half of my magical defenses. Air and earth shuddered. The whole hill crumbled as we leapt apart.

I landed on a shattered boulder. Yz, who had grown a new arm of ice, drew his longsword.

A volley of flares rose, violently turning night to day. Wind magic blew the dust away, revealing the black-haired woman who’d had the temerity to strike me and another maid—younger, carrying an antique war bow but no quiver, with a green uniform and flaxen hair that turned outward where it ended at her shoulders. North Star protruded from a rock behind them.

Yz raised his longsword with practiced ease and strode in front of me. “Name yourselves,” came his cold demand.

Both women curtsied, each holding her skirts with one hand.

“I am second-in-command of the Leinster Maid Corps, Romy by name.”

“You may call me Mina Walker, second-in-command of the Howard Maid Corps.”

No mere maids could have eluded my detection spells.

I struck the ground with the butt of my staff. “A little girl from the southern isles and... I know that bow. The Yustins carry them into battles they mean to make decisive. I suppose that makes you the unwanted princess. To think that you survived. Did the old emperor take pity on you?”

In lieu of giving an answer, one woman raised her war hammer, and the other nocked a spell-arrow to her bow.

I gave my lips a scornful twist. “But do you imagine that the likes of you can stop me, Aster Etherfield, the Sage, prime apostle of the Church of the Holy Spirit? Your insolence knows no bounds!”

Most of the maids lying in wait flinched. They would be a nuisance but no threat. The seconds-in-command, however, answered breezily.

“No.”

“We would never be so arrogant.”

“Then what—”

Without sound, without warning, without even mana, myriad flickers of light lopped off Yz’s head as he made to swing his sword and severed my own left arm. Stripped of its spell formulae, the limb turned to ice and shattered.

I know this technique!

“I meant to take your head and chest as well,” a young woman jeered, punctuating her words with applause. “I never dreamed I’d have to settle for an arm! You live up to your titles, even if you are only an ice sculpture.”

Yz thudded to the ground. Azure mana oozed from him, but no blood.

A chestnut-haired woman in a red maid uniform drew North Star from the stone. “So this is the Gemstone’s flower orb, the legacy of a jeweler who looked into the abyss when gods still walked the earth. I imagine that anyone looking to break—or bend—the Star Oath that’s lingered in this land since then would find it useful.”

If Io were still alive, he would have called this “seven kinds of tiresome.” I grimaced and spoke the accursed name that had been at the center of so many underworld tales for so long.

“Angel of Death.”

The monster passed the sword to a white rabbit, shrugged, and came forward past the seconds-in-command. “No, sir, I am Anna, head maid to the Ducal House of Leinster—nothing more and nothing less! Romy, Lady Mina, take care. He’s not dead.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m n-not a lady!”

Yz’s fingers twitched. Azure mana stretched from the stump of his neck and latched on to his head. A moment later, he bolted upright like a spring-powered doll, eyes a fathomless blue. Icy scales covered his neck, and the formula for Resurrection writhed on his cheek, closing his wound.

To think that my spare sacrifice would prove so useful.

Yz drew his longsword and snarled his hatred at the Angel of Death.

“Damn your eyes.”

The freak who could probably boast the most varied combat record of any living being on the continent was not impressed.

“Oh me, oh my. I see you weren’t content to infuse yourself with Resurrection, Radiant Shield, and Falling Star. You stuffed ice-wyrm blood into the mix too, didn’t you? And what else? You clearly subscribe to the philosophy of ‘make the most of everything, even corpses.’ I see your church hasn’t grown any less vile in the past two hundred years.” She cocked her head. “But I hardly imagine your late son, young Master Alf, would take kindly to this form. And surely your days are numbered?”

She’s seen through him. In the worst-case scenario, I must at least retrieve North Star.

The star-thing that currently went by “Anna” narrowed her eyes. “I hate to intrude, but I hope you’ll accept a word of advice, Mr. Miles Talito.” She used Yz’s human name, probably on purpose. “I am given to understand that, tempted by intimations that your dear, departed son might live again, you lowered yourself to becoming an apostle. With all due respect, sir, you chose precisely the wrong people to bargain with. Do you have the least idea who they are? The Church of the Holy Spirit has caused nothing but horrors and calamities every time it has reared its head to soil the pages of history in the past five centuries. And who can say what this false Saint is or wants?”

“Enough,” Yz growled. The ice wyrm’s mana spread, starting to freeze the whole area solid.

But the fiend in human form did not stop. She went on speaking truth. “Your wish will never come true. A mere great spell or two cannot change the fact of death. To be blunt, you’ve been woefully naive. And for what, except to be run into the ground and, I daresay, meet a miserable end?”

“I said, enough!” my foolish pawn bellowed and took off like a shot, maintaining a low profile. The imbecile.

Sure enough, the seconds-in-command intercepted him.

“I think not.”

“You have us to deal with!”

Yz let out a cry as, after taking the full brunt of a war hammer and an arrow of light, he plummeted off the hill and out of sight. The brat and the discarded princess gave chase.

The Angel of Death brought her hands together and smiled, for all the world like a little girl. I felt sick to the depths of my soul.

“There! No more third wheel,” she crowed. “Now, what are we waiting for? Once we’ve finished here, I can move on to the real you.”

Seven kinds of tiresome. But needs must. Yz can perish for all I care, but I must retrieve North Star.

I spun my staff, casting ice spells in rapid succession. The Angel of Death set about fortifying her position with her infamous “strings.” A blind, no doubt.

In a land from the age of gods, lashed by the icy winds of winter, our deadly combat began.

Chapter 4

The key turned, along with the magnificent likeness of a wolf it bore, and a pleasant click struck our ears. Mrs. Walker, to whom Duke Walter had entrusted it, opened the heavy wooden door and bowed to us with the utmost courtesy.

“I appreciate your patience, Mr. Allen, my ladies. This is my mistress’s—Duchess Rosa’s—study. I must warn you, however, that we conducted a thorough search of her effects, including those in other rooms, at the time of her death on the master’s orders, and we found no diary or journal among them. If one does remain undiscovered, I believe it could only be in this room.”

Her voice carried a strong note of confusion. She had already told us that although Duchess Rosa had written copiously in life, she could not recall her mistress ever keeping a diary.

“Thank you.” I bowed slightly to the head maid and gave my anxious companions an encouraging glance. “Tina, Stella.”

Atra and Lia, clad in Howard maid uniforms, clung to the sisters’ matching azure skirts, while Lena gripped the sleeve of Tina’s blouse. All three had insisted on coming and refused to be dissuaded. Hand in hand, the sisters trepidatiously followed Mrs. Walker into the room. Tina let out a loud gasp.

“I had no idea there was such a large room tucked away in this corner of the house,” murmured Stella.

I nodded to Lydia, who wore a long-sleeved scarlet dress, and entered after them.

The room recalled something of the professor’s office. A timeworn writing desk and several chairs, arranged ahead and a little to one side, caught my eye first. Then the antique mana lamps on the walls, molded with exquisite craftsmanship in the likeness of birds. An artisan of renown might have had a hand in making them. A soft, deep carpet covered the floor. Atra and Lia were already rolling around on it, singing out in delight, while Lena stole envious glances at the pair of them. And the pièce de résistance: the rows upon rows of bookcases. More volumes lay piled high on chairs and on the reading desk beside the sofa. The late Duchess Rosa must have been quite the bibliophile.

I opened the curtains, admitting a flood of dazzling sunlight. I could see Felicia out in the courtyard, talking with the maids and menservants who were loading griffins with supplies for our flight to Shiki. She had chosen her black military uniform that day. Anko, I felt certain, would not be far off.

“The room’s original owner held the dukedom two generations before the master and kept it as a private retreat, or so I’m told,” said Mrs. Walker in a wistful tone. “Then it was long used as a spare archive. But the mistress begged the master for a room to conduct her research in—the only thing she ever did beg him for, to the best of my knowledge.”

The head maid lit the logs already piled in the grate with a fire spell and turned back to face us. Evidently, the hot-water pipes didn’t extend to this room.

“I have left everything as it was when the mistress was in good health,” she concluded. “You may search at your leisure.”

“Thank you, Shelley!” Tina exclaimed.

“We’ll see what we can find,” said Stella.

The sisters waded into the jungle of bookshelves with a will. Atra and Lia took off too, tails wagging. Lena, the de facto big sister of the group, gave chase, crying, “H-Here now! N-No running!”

I do hope we find a diary, even if it doesn’t tell us anything about the Shiki archive.

“Mr. Allen, Lady Lydia, you might wish to see this.” Mrs. Walker neatened the logs with a thump of the poker and passed me a slip of paper. I glanced over it quickly to avoid drawing Tina’s and Stella’s attention.

What?

“‘Aster appeared in Shiki last night and engaged Anna’s maids. They severely wounded Miles Talito, aka the new apostle Yz, forcing him to retreat, and they reclaimed the Addisons’ stolen sword, North Star,’” I repeated incredulously. “Lydia, what do you make of it?”

“They’re after the seventh altar that’s supposed to be part of the archive. That and the other forbidden tome of the sorceress called the Bibliophage. We can surmise they performed the same unspeakable arts on Miles as they did on Gerard, so they might be treating the lesser apostles as disposable pawns...except there aren’t enough of them for that to make sense.” Lydia sighed. “If only Princess Schemer were here; I could hunt down the real Aster and carve him up. Honestly, why is she never around when you actually need her?!”

I laughed awkwardly. In a way, it was just like Lydia to turn this into a grand indictment of the distant Cheryl. And our princess really did have oddly poor timing. I could practically see her pouting over the observation, blonde hair forming an angry mane as she called our names with a menacing imitation of nonchalance.

It won’t be easy. Still, I’ve already written to her, and I hope she stays focused on Lalannoy.

Lydia turned on her heel and made for the corridor. “I’ll get Felicia to speed up packing,” she said over her shoulder. “If you find Duchess Rosa’s journal, so much the better. If not, it won’t change what we need to do. Am I wrong?”

Lady Lydia Leinster looked truly breathtaking at moments like this. I couldn’t count the times she’d come to my rescue.

“Understood,” I said. “Try not to bully the future head of my company too much.”

“I’ll pass the message to Felicia, word for word. Tell me, what’s the job title above ‘president’?” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “Make a pact with me before we leave for Shiki. I don’t care if you have to simplify it.”

I found her earnest plea difficult to refuse. We would be heading off to face the prime apostle—a monster who called himself “the Sage” and wielded the great spell Falling Star. There was no guarantee that Lydia and I would be able to fight side by side, so I supposed I ought to take any precaution I could.

“I will assist Miss Fosse and Lady Lydia as well,” said Mrs. Walker. “I hope you will do all you can for Ladies Tina and Stella, sir.”

“Yes, of course,” I replied, taking her unspoken meaning: “If any journal turns up, vet its contents with care.” Tina and Stella were still in the dark about the suspected assassination of Duchess Rosa.

No sooner had I shown off the Lady of the Sword and the head maid than a girl poked her head of platinum hair and the sky-blue ribbon that tied it from behind a bookcase. Rays of sunshine falling straight from the heavens lent her an almost mythical air. Yes, Lady Stella Howard might well have been a genuine saint.

While I contemplated Stella’s holiness, she gave me a somber look. “Mr. Allen, has there been trouble in Shiki?”

“Please don’t worry,” I said. “There have been no deaths or casualties. Anna and the other maids saw to that. But we might hasten our departure.”

“Of course! I’ll try to make myself useful.” Saint Wolf brought her hands together with an airy smile. I could almost see beast ears and a wagging tail.

Then the other Howard sister peered irately around the bookcase with the children in tow. “Sir! Stella! Stop dillydallying and help me search!”

“Help find ice lady’s thing?” Lia pleaded, accompanied by emphatic gestures from Atra.

“Detection is hard work, I’ll have you know,” Lena added.

I found myself impressed, and pleased, to find Tina playing big sister to the little ones. I would need to tell Ellie and Lynne once we got back to the royal capital.

Leading Stella, I waded into the bookshelf jungle. Spell books, history books, biology texts, travelogues... Books of every description stood in neat rows, all tremendously valuable but none, I thought, so rare as to be nearly unique. I strolled along, making small talk and casting spells of detection. Time passed, and we had nearly lost hope when Atra and Lia burst into excited shouts.

“Allen!”

“Found it! All the way in back!”

I exchanged looks with the Howard sisters and made for the back row of shelves. There was Lena, standing about halfway down with the feathers in her long azure hair twitching.

“The one with the azure cover. It’s a crafty one. Not many could elude all three of us for so long,” she said, pointing without a hint of hesitation. Had she known all along that the journal at least existed?

The other children pulled me along by the sleeves as I advanced to what at first glance appeared to be a perfectly ordinary tome sandwiched between others on a shelf.

Only it doesn’t have a title, and these traces of mana remind me of... Of course! I sensed the same mana from the spell books full of handwritten notes that I consulted to make assignments for Tina and Ellie the last time I was in the northern capital.

I reached out to touch the book—and froze.

Duchess Rosa loved her daughters with all her heart. So if I want to lift this spell...

“Tina, Stella,” I said. “Try touching the spine together.”

The sisters looked puzzled.

“Huh?”

“Are you certain, Mr. Allen?”

I stood aside and gave them both a gentle shove. They looked each other in the eye, nodded as if they had come to a decision, and...

“Now!” they yelled, and touched the book in unison. Cold, clear azure mana erupted from the timeworn volume. It sank slowly backward, and part of the bookcase toppled inward with a thud. A largish box, made of what looked to be metal, emerged from behind it.

What an elaborate mechanism.

“S-Sir!”

“M-Mr. Allen.”

The Howard sisters seized my arms, looking anxious. Apparently, they wanted me to do the honors.

I beg your pardon. I’m only doing as your daughters ask, I told my mental image of the duchess I had never met and picked up the box. Its lid was engraved with an imposing Great Tree and blooming flowers. The sides showed people I took for demisprites, possibly in scenes from myth. Perhaps Lady Shise had gifted the box to her favorite pupil. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be locked. The metal lid creaked open. Within lay a leather-bound journal that looked to have seen long years of regular use.

Tina and Stella stood stunned.

“Th-There it is.”

“This was m-mother’s.”

Atra and Lia hopped up and down, the former piping notes and the latter demanding “Lia great or what? Or what?”

“You’re both amazing. Thank you,” I said, tousling the children’s heads. They had used a lot of mana and were looking a little sleepy.

The pair twitched their ears and tails and broke into song. Mana lights started dancing.

I was letting the spectacle warm my heart when the azure-haired child stamped her little foot. “Why do you spare no gratitude for me?! Tolerant though I am, I have my limits! I could trap this whole area under a sheet of ice in my wrath! Atra and Lia are merely assistants. Know that you could never have penetrated the extraordinary wards blocking your perception if not for my greatness and my intimate knowledge of the Lady of Ice!”

I see one great elemental has trouble expressing her feelings.

“Oh? But you would never do such a thing, would you, Lena? You’re too understanding and too wise for that.” I handed the box to Stella, bent my knees, and whispered in the child’s ear, “I know you pretended not to know about the journal at first for Tina’s and Stella’s sakes. Thank you.”

The feathers in her hair fanned out, and she turned her head away. “As long as you understand.”

“What, was that not enough? Would you like me to pick you up and give you a twirl?”

“D-Do you imagine I would desire such a thing, you...you dullard?!”

“Allen!” Atra chimed in.

“Sounds fun to Lia!” added her companion.

Despite the children jostling me, I managed to stand.

Now, what to do about this journal? Even if we put off a thorough examination, I’d at least like to know if it has anything to tell us about the Shiki archive.

Before I could finish pondering, Tina and Stella seized my sleeves, nervously calling my name.

“Umm...” The younger sister faltered.

“Would you mind reading it first?” the elder said. “I’m a little...frightened of what I might find.”

I could understand their trepidation, faced with the journal of their mother who had passed so early in their childhoods.

“Lena,” I said, “I assume you know what I’d like right now?”

The kindhearted great elemental who had once been Duchess Rosa’s companion harrumphed and held up her left index finger. The ribbon securing the journal came undone. Its pages flipped, practically a blur, and then stopped. A hand-drawn map fell out onto the floor, so I picked it up. It bore the location of the Shiki archive along with observations in a woman’s hand.

Far-reaching wards of misdirection used during the age of gods? I see. So without a guidepost, it’s impossible to reach the archive except by certain specific means. No wonder it eluded even Lady Shise.

“Does that satisfy you?” The child swept back her azure locks, plainly out of sorts. “I slept most of the time, but I hazily recollect a zealous investigation.”

Like Atra and Lia, Lena currently found herself unable to exercise anything approaching her rightful power, and she fell into a sleep after any great exertion. It seemed she had been much the same in Duchess Rosa’s time, and that she felt ashamed of the fact.

I bowed politely and said, “Thank you. Please accept three twirls in token of my gratitude.”

“K-Keep your twirls! I’ve had enough of your tomfoolery!” Lena menaced me, windmilling her little arms. I liked seeing her so full of vigor.

I drew my own pocket notebook from my coat and copied the pages concerning the Shiki archive with a spell. “We have the information we need urgently,” I told the sisters. “As for the rest of Duchess Rosa’s journal...”

“I’d like you to look after it,” said Stella.

“Until father gets back,” Tina added.

My mind was awhirl with ideas, but I put the journal away and said, “Very well. Let’s leave it at that for the time being.”

Our mission accomplished, we all made for the door, drawing the curtains as we went. Logs were still burning on the hearth.

“Go on ahead. I’ll put the fire out,” I told Tina and Stella, transferring Atra and Lia to their care. The children seemed ready to doze off at any moment.

“Yes, sir.”

“But please don’t keep us waiting long.”

The quartet opened the door and filed out. Lena started after them. “It’s here,” she muttered, with an expression I struggled to describe.

What?

I paused in the act of spreading the fire with the poker and dousing it with a mist of water magic. A weight fell on my left shoulder.

“Anko? What is it?” I asked the elusive feline who had been accompanying Felicia all day. The cat gave a single meow in response. I set the poker aside, unable to suppress a frown as I perceived why Anko and Felicia needed to make the journey to Shiki—a reason Anko had not shared the previous night. “I understand. And I see how it would be possible on partially sanctified ground with Kifune’s aid. I’ve experienced it myself in the city of water. But please, make it a method of last resort. We should be able to give even Aster a run for his money as we are no—”

A meowed rebuke cut me short: “On the battlefield, overconfidence is death’s best friend.”

“Very well. I’ll take Felicia along,” I said heavily, raising my hands in surrender. Anko was always right, not to mention tenderhearted and demanding in equal measure. No one knew that as well as Lydia and I. But would Felicia really be all right? No doubt Stella and the others had already joined her.

Out the window, I could see the head clerk frantically waving her hands in the courtyard.

✽

“I can see it, sir! That’s Shiki!” Tina’s voice cheered from the communication orb on my collar.

“And a little snowfall shouldn’t give us any trouble,” Stella chimed in. “We’ll fly ahead, Mr. Allen.”

“Make a slow descent,” Lydia commanded. “Don’t startle Felicia.”

The sisters’ platinum hair and my partner’s scarlet tresses caught the winter sunlight. All three cut stately figures in their matching cloaks. The two lead griffins slowed, circling down toward a gap in the dense foliage—a level, riverside clearing that doubtless owed its existence to earth magic. Tents surrounded the spot, where not only Howard and Leinster maids but also several dozen soldiers worked diligently on our behalf. Under-duke Euni had wasted no time making good on his promise.

Finding Duchess Rosa’s journal had given us the key to lifting the vast, ancient wards of misdirection that blanketed this land and allowed us to locate the archive’s entrance. Millie’s more precise map had proven a great aid in the latter operation.

Now to examine everything we need and seal it all away before the apostles attack again!

We had left the northern capital two days earlier. The children had remained manifest through the previous night, which we had spent in the under-duke’s city of Seesehr, but today found them slumbering within Lydia, Tina, and me. That just went to show how much mana lifting the Lady of Ice’s curse had taken, or so Lena had explained before she’d settled down to sleep. The upshot was that we wouldn’t be able to call on their power in the battle to come.

“We’re about to land. Hold on tight; you wouldn’t want to fall,” I told the bespectacled girl in the seat behind me, who hadn’t stopped hugging Anko since Seesehr. Her dignified black uniform made a sharp contrast to her anxious expression.

“R-Right.” Felicia hesitantly wrapped her arms around my waist. “I’ve been thinking—we might be able to sell land surveys from the air. And there are all sorts of other possibilities. Once we’re back in the royal capital, I need to set up a meeting between you and Else of the Skyhawk Company so we can...”

Oh, good. She’s holding up better than I’d hoped.

I made sure that Anko had moved onto my left shoulder, then started the black griffin’s descent, landing us safely in the center of the clearing. I dismounted and thanked our winged companion, stroking its head when it lowered itself for us.

Then I turned. “Felicia, if you would?”

“R-Right.”

I took the bespectacled girl’s hand, steadying her as I helped her to the ground. Our head clerk was at least Ellie’s equal when it came to tripping on nothing.

“Th-Thank you very much.” Embarrassed, Felicia lowered her gaze and covered her face with the military hat she’d been wearing. Lydia and the Howard sisters, who had been speaking with Romy and Mina, gave her a look that said, “We’ll let it slide today.” Those who showed courage, earned respect.

I entrusted the black griffin to the Howard Maid Corps’s number nine, who kept her eyes hidden behind brown bangs. “I hope you don’t mind, Susie.”

“Y-You remember my—? Y-You may depend upon me, Mr. Allen,” came the reply, accompanied by a grandiose salute out of step with her youthful appearance.

Is having a basic knowledge of the maid corps’s officers so strange? It seems perfectly natural to me.

I drew Millie’s map and Duchess Rosa’s from inside my coat and was just overlaying them when the head maid with chestnut hair appeared and bobbed a curtsy. “Mr. Allen, Miss Fosse, we have been expecting you.”

“And I appreciate all you’ve been doing, Anna,” I replied, while Felicia stammered a hello.

Anna let out a musical laugh. “That black army uniform is simply delightful—with the exception of one particular portion.”

“Excuse me, umm...?” Felicia faltered, confused.

The petite head maid fixed a baleful stare on a pair of assets too well-developed for clothes to conceal, then closed her eyes with the air of one enduring the intolerable. Other maids and even some of the under-duke’s lady knights gazed heavenward or crouched to scribble in the dirt. The casualties reached catastrophic proportions.

“How do things stand?” I asked, passing Anko to Felicia.

After taking a moment to compose herself, the right-hand woman of the continentally renowned Bloodstained Lady said, “This way, sir,” and led us into a large tent. Multiple spellstones of fire banished the cold. A large map lay unrolled on a central table. Around it waited Lydia, with Cresset Fox at her hip; Tina, in white sorceress’s garb with her rod slung on her back; and Stella, wearing her white military uniform. All three had shed their cloaks and stood ready for battle. Romy, Mina, and finally Anna entered, lowering a heavy cloth over the opening behind them.

I gave Felicia a look indicating that she should take a nearby chair, then took my place beside Lydia. After placing both maps on the table, I nodded to the head maid. “Anna, if you please.”

“Certainly, sir. First...” A video orb projected a man in a hooded robe of pristine white. Although his right arm had been cleanly severed, he wasn’t bleeding. “The gentleman calling himself Prime Apostle Aster Etherfield who appeared three days ago was a substitute of the same kind we encountered in the royal capital. His real body’s location remains unknown. However, we can estimate the range of his control from records of our battles thus far. Speaking of which!”

Mina’s flaxen hair with its distinctive outward curls bobbed as she nodded and produced a second video orb. Felicia let out a muted shriek, then latched on to my coat with both hands at the sight of the grotesque figure it projected. Miles Talito, former leader of Lalannoy’s Heaven and Earth Party who had stooped to joining the apostles, wielded a sword coated in ice and blood while scales and spell formulae shrouded the entire left half of his body.

The Howard Maid Corps’s second-in-command placed rabbit-shaped markers on the large map, outlining a circle. “Our number five, Chitose, has stationed her magical creatures over an area centered on this camp. Through them, we are currently maintaining wards of interference that the professor designed for use against the apostles. We believe that our enemy will find it impossible to control his icy doubles without setting foot in Shiki himself. The next time he appears, it should be in the flesh.”

“As for the new apostle, Yz, the former Miles Talito has already become something other than a person,” said the dark-haired and dark-skinned Romy, her spectacles flashing a warning. “I inflicted mortal wounds on him several times in our recent engagement but ultimately failed to slay him and allowed him to escape. In addition to multiple great spells...he appears to have fortified himself with the flesh and blood of the ice wyrm.”

Meaning we can’t put him out of commission for good. I glanced at the image of Yz swinging his icy sword. Perhaps...

“Mr. Allen, please accept this.” Anna produced a beautiful, sheathed sword from I-couldn’t-guess-where and proffered it to me.

“I-Is that what I think it is?” Tina’s platinum hair stood up in surprise.

“North Star?” Stella’s gaze hardened. “The sword that the church stole from the Addisons?”

“Precisely, my ladies!” The head maid’s light-chestnut hair framed a daredevil grin, and she held up her right index finger. “The Gemstone herself polished that flower-shaped stone in its hilt, and Aster appeared to attach great importance to it. I believe it might be of some assistance in lifting the spells that blanket this land.”

I shot Lydia a glance that said, “Mind if I try it?”

“Suit yourself,” she looked back grudgingly—a demeanor so amusing that I felt myself relax. We had originally planned that I would link with Lydia, Stella, and Tina for the attempt, but any chance to conserve our strength was worth taking.

“Tina, Stella,” I called.

The Howard sisters immediately stood straighter. “Yes, sir!” they chorused without a moment’s delay.

I brushed the crystal flower. “Would you mind lending me a hand?”

“With pleasure!”

“I’m yours to command!”

“Thank you,” I said.

“E-Excuse me...” Felicia faltered, bowled over by the rapid developments. I couldn’t help grinning at the contrast between her and the sisters, who seemed poised to spring out of the tent at any moment.

“Lydia,” I added, “we’re going to work a far-reaching detection spell. Would you keep watch from the air while—”

“Romy, assemble a team,” Lydia interrupted. “We’ll let Anna and Mina handle the ground.”

“Certainly, my lady.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“I’m your woman!”

While the maids filed out, the Lady of the Sword sulked in a manner only I would recognize and ever so slightly brushed my fingers. Our simplified pact activated. Lydia sighed, almost imperceptibly but with heartfelt delight, and strode briskly away.

“Hmm?” grunted Tina.

“Was that a spell just now?” Stella murmured. But despite their suspicions, they too left the tent.

I dread to think what the future holds if they almost caught a spell that stealthy.

Anko prodded Felicia’s cheek, finally snapping her back to reality. “Huh?! O-Oh, Allen. U-Umm...”

“I’d like you and Anko to hold the fort,” I said. “Your turn will come after we’ve found the archive.”

“R-Right.”

I took her hand and helped her to her feet, and we went out as well. Lydia was already astride a black griffin, leading the Leinsters’ elite maids into the skies. The scene would make a fine picture postcard. I signaled Felicia to keep hold of Anko and stand back, then advanced with North Star to the center of the clearing, where the girls waited, deep in discussion.

“Tina, Stella, are you ready to— Whoa there!”

The young Ladies Howard threw themselves on me before I could stop them, as if seeking support. I sensed Felicia’s shock behind me and Lydia’s wrath through my communication orb.

Tina giggled, while Stella said, “Just the thing to steady my nerves.”

Whatever am I going to do with them?

I touched their platinum heads and established the slightest of links. Then I winked, indicating that they should step back, drew the lovely blade, and held it out pommel-first. “Stella, you take North Star. You may use your staff as well. Tina, give it all you’ve got!”

“I’ll be certain to return it.”

“You can count on me!”

I waved my left hand and drew the enchanted rod Silver Bloom from the pocket of dark magic in which I’d stored it. A stir passed through the nearby maids and soldiers.

“Now, shall we give it a try?” I smiled at my students. “We’ll follow the steps we discussed last night.”

“Right!”

Bringing sword, staff, and rods together, we cast the experimental tri-elemental disenchantment Pillars of Celestial Snow. Instantly, the orbs on Silver Bloom, North Star, Tina’s rod, and Stella’s staff pulsed with light. A brilliant ray shot into the sky and burst. Soon, glittering shards of pale azure showered down, and seven heavenly pillars began to take form across Shiki.

A babble broke out all around us.

“Snow?”

“No, this is something else.”

“It’s just like that day at Rostlay!”

“The Saint has made a miracle!”

“P-Pillars from heaven?”

“What could generate such immense mana?”

“Even the forest seems different.”

Light was starting to filter through the forbidding tangle of trees.

“Lydia, can you see anything?” I called into my orb, sweating with the effort of the precise control the spell demanded.

“Yes,” came the reply. “You hit the jackpot.”

A moment later, the seven colossal pillars fully stabilized, and a mossy stone path between the trees revealed itself to us. At long last, we had broken the spell.

“Duchess Rosa got it right,” Lydia continued. “The seven pillars were hidden by layer upon layer of perception-blocking spells, and we could never make it to the archive without disenchanting all of them at once. The pillars’ cores must be made from dead branches of a Great Tree, to judge by their mana. It reminds me of the sanctuary in the city of water. We would have had our work cut out for us finding them all without those two maps to go by. Look!”

The tops of the seven soaring pillars wavered and converged—in the dead center of a heptagon.

“Huh?!” Tina gasped.

“Th-The sword has a mind of its own!” Stella cried as a geyser of light spread from the flower in North Star’s hilt. Anko’s meow mingled with that of the absent white cat Kifune, ringing out with inexplicable clarity. The next thing I knew...

We all gasped, stunned to find ourselves standing before a mossy stone ruin amid a glittering shower. Flagstones ran ahead of us under a thin blanket of snow to a massive gate, aglow with otherworldly light. The arch was ornamented in a style I’d never seen before, and a haze of mana blocked my view of anything beyond it.

Can the archive really still function? It looks like the trees are well on their way to swallowing the ruins whole.

Looking around in my confusion, I saw Anna, Mina, the under-duke’s knights, and even Romy’s fliers standing around in shock. Had Anko cast a mass-teleportation spell? No, the power involved would be too great even for that majestic feline.

I sensed stormy mana above just as a grumpy, taciturn Lydia hacked through the forest canopy and landed beside me.

Oh. This is Anko’s magic, all right. Who else would single out Lydia to travel the hard way? But where did all this power come from? Did lifting the wards have something to do with it?

My sour-faced partner was playing with my hair when Anna made her report.

“Mr. Allen, we can detect no enemy presence nearby. I suspect that those of us not present were judged to be at risk of being ‘swallowed by the forest.’”

“I see,” I said slowly.

Sure enough, I sensed something unusual about the air in this place. It was utterly, almost painfully clear. I doubted we could stay for long. We had stumbled into something perilously close to the sanctuaries that had formed in the city of water, the royal capital, and the city of craft.

Anko meowed once, and the mark of Frigid Crane appeared on the back of Tina’s right hand. The ring and bracelet on my own hand shone, chastising me for my indecision.

Talk about demanding.

Leaving further arrangements to Lydia and Stella, I trudged through the light snow to the threshold of the gate. Mana seemed to come alive, wrapping me in its coils—though even that description failed to do the bizarre sensation justice.

“Tina, Felicia,” I called, “come here. I’d like to know what Lena and Anko make of this.”

“Yes, sir!” The young noblewoman raced up, ready for anything.

“O-Okay.” The bespectacled girl, uniquely ill-suited to adventure, carried Anko to my other side.

“Let’s hold up our hands together,” I said. “We’re lucky to have made it this far, and we’ll be no worse off if it doesn’t work.”

Both girls nodded in silence and took deep breaths.

“Ready. Set. Go!” we all shouted together and raised our hands to the massive gate. A moment passed. Then we started as a flash engulfed our vision.

It’s just like that time on the Four Heroes Sea!

Before my mind went dark, I squeezed Tina and Felicia in a protective embrace.

✽

Mr. Allen, Tina, and Felicia waved their hands in front of the enormous gate, a blinding light shot through the forest around us...and then they were gone, as completely as if they’d never been. I slowly opened my eyes and gaped. North Star had vanished from my grip as well.

“Tina?” I called weakly. “Felicia? Mr. Allen?”

They were gone. The gate stood unchanged, but the three people who had just been standing before it were nowhere to be seen. Could they have been drawn into the ruins?

I let out a silent scream, swinging my staff in a wide arc and swiftly casting Frost-Gleam Hawks, the supreme spell that Mr. Allen had gifted me. I drew my rapier too—at which point Lydia thrust out her left arm sideways.

“Calm down, Stella,” she said. “They’re fine. Can’t you feel his mana?”

Of course. I was linked to Mr. Allen. I shouldn’t have needed Lydia to remind me of that.

Don’t panic, Stella. Think! I mentally berated myself as I closed my eyes and searched carefully.

There.

I could sense Mr. Allen’s mana, albeit dimly. But...it was so dreadfully far away. I could hardly believe he was still in Shiki, let alone inside the ruin before us. I didn’t know what to make of it.

Lydia clapped me on the shoulder. “The same thing happened when he opened the black gate with the message from Shooting Star under that little island on the Four Heroes Sea. They’ve been teleported somewhere else, whether they like it or not—probably to the Shiki archive. It’ll work itself out, especially since they have Anko this time.”

“Of course,” I said slowly, but unease smoldered and would not be extinguished. Tina was one thing, but Felicia couldn’t fight. Yet seeing as the Lydia—the Lady of the Sword who valued Mr. Allen more than the world or the stars above—hadn’t decided to charge in, I couldn’t very well make selfish demands.

“We have our own work to do,” Lady Lydia Leinster continued with dignity, shaking out her gorgeous scarlet tresses. “Work like this!”

She turned, casting a Firebird behind and above her. The avian menace beat wings of bright white fire, soaring straight toward...

“Dear me. I’ve been caught spying, haven’t I?” a woman said cheerily as the intricate wards concealing her crumbled. The supreme spell struck an unfurled black parasol and shattered with a frustrated roar, scattering flames every which way. A scorching gust melted the thin layer of snow and ignited some of the trees.

Did she just take the full brunt of Lydia’s Firebird?!

“Duty calls,” Anna said serenely, having already appraised the situation.

“Yes, ma’am!” Officers of the Leinster and Howard Maid Corps shifted into combat stances as one, and the under-duke’s handpicked knights followed suit.

Mana too tremendous for words blasted the dark smoke from the sky, and the woman carrying the black parasol landed weightlessly on a boulder ahead of us. A fall of tarnished-silver hair reached from her wide-brimmed black hat to her waist. Crescent moons dangled from her ears, and she wore a dress of darkest sable.

There’s no mistaking her.

“Alicia Coalfield.” Lydia fixed the newcomer with a glare.

“You left out ‘the great Shooting Star’s one and only lieutenant, the Crescent Moon.’” The dread vampiress bared her pointed canines, looking down at us through bloodred eyes. That was all. She did no more. Yet it was enough to make me break out in goose bumps from head to toe while my knees threatened to give way.

I recalled a lesson my late grandfather had taught me as a little girl: “Never dream of facing a vampire in a fair fight. They are fiends in human form.” But what difference did that make? I kept my eyes on the back of the older girl facing down Alicia, wrestled my fear into submission, and stepped forward.

If I shrink from this fight, I’ll never be able to stand at Mr. Allen’s side again. I couldn’t stand that! I want to protect him! I want to help him!

Lydia arched an eyebrow when I took my position beside her, rapier and staff at the ready, but she made no comment. I could only tell that she felt far from displeased.

Alicia stopped looking contemptuously down at us to rest her parasol on her shoulder and murmur, “It must be nearly time now.”

A twisted black flower crackled into being in the air above us. With a roar like thunder, it disgorged spell-soldiers armed with pikes and war hammers and clad in dark-gray plate. A man half consumed by icy scales and writhing spell formulae plummeted after them, gripping a frozen sword in his undevoured right hand. Yz—Miles Talito, a man who had tried to offer his homeland to the church on a platter—turned lightless eyes on us in a flurry of the dregs of the ice wyrm and great spells, as well as his own blood.

“Alf,” he muttered. “ALf. ALF. Alf. I pROMise I’ll resURRect yoU.”

He no longer retained even a will of his own, yet he remembered the person he longed for. I nearly quailed at the tragedy of it all, but I roused myself by an effort of will. Anna and her maids hadn’t fought Miles alone. Where was the Sage?

They want to stall us!

“Thank you so much for weakening that bothersome Star Oath for us.” The vampiress sneered, her crimson gaze dripping disdain. “One could hardly work a decent spell in the heart of it. And magic from the age of gods and invoked through a Great Tree is such a hassle to undo. I couldn’t have summoned even this bare minimum of pawns without you. Now, we’d like to enter the Shiki archive ourselves. Would you kindly make way?”

“What a stupid question,” said Lydia.

“We respectfully decline,” I added, just as firmly.

“Lydia Leinster is a sword for cutting down anyone who harms Allen Alvern. Just like the real Crescent Moon was a sword for Shooting Star.”

“I’m told she went by ‘Coalheart’ as long as she lived—never ‘Coalfield.’ And that her hair was a beautiful bright silver that nothing could tarnish.”

Our hair danced on a wind that sprang up to buffet us from behind. Staggering quantities of mana swirled above the ruins. Prime Apostle Aster Etherfield, the Sage, was attempting to force his way inside. But we never took our eyes off the woman. One look away would mean death.

“So, Alicia Coalfield the vampiress...”

“Who precisely are you?”

The woman lowered the brim of her black hat and closed her parasol. The spell-soldiers formed a line of pikes, and Miles raised his blade of ice and blood.

“What a shame. Yes, what a dreadful shame.” Alicia’s tarnished-silver hair turned crimson. The boulder cracked under the strain of her erupting mana. She slowly withdrew her right hand and said:

“Die, then.”

Her crimson eyes lit up with the ecstasy of battle, and she gave her parasol an effortless downward swing. While the baleful blow felled trees and toppled stones, Lydia and I darted to either side.

“Anna and I will take Alicia!” barked the Lady of the Sword, sprouting wings of fire from her back. “Stella—you, Romy, and Mina deal with Yz!”

“Right!” I called back, while the three maids chorused, “As you wish, my lady!”

Both sides loosed spells, and the once silent sanctuary began its transformation into a battlefield.

Mr. Allen, Tina, Felicia, please be safe! Anko, I beg you, please watch over them!

I prayed with all my heart, dodging the blast from one of Alicia’s left-handed swipes in midair before bombarding Yz with the spells I’d never stopped weaving.

✽

The next thing I knew, I was standing in a field of flowers. Behind me, the World Tree towered into the heavens. Petals danced on the breeze, and butterflies of ice fluttered amid a dazzle of emerald glows—a fairy-tale vision. Not for the first time, I found myself in the world where the great elementals dwelled. But the children were asleep, so someone else must have summoned me.

“You again?” I asked the crimson-tressed beauty wearing tiny spectacles who sat, elegantly sipping tea, in an ornate chair among the flowers. “What is it this time?”

The vision of a young Linaria Etherheart—Twin Heavens, the mightiest sword fighter and sorceress of the age of strife, who had single-handedly outfought the world five centuries past—returned a porcelain cup painted with a Great Tree to its saucer and propped her elbow on a table of what looked like marble. She wore not her military uniform but everyday clothes in shades of crimson.

“Oh?” she said. “Are you sure you can afford to take that tone, Allen of the wolf clan? With Atra and the other elementals exhausted from tracking down the Lady of Ice’s lost property, I personally bent the law to visit you! Perhaps I should make it so you can’t take that bracelet off either. The black-and-white angel was dying to come along.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” I sighed. I wouldn’t have put it past this witch. And I would never stand a chance of stopping her.

Linaria studied my expression with satisfaction and crooked her finger, motioning me to sit, so I took the chair beside hers and asked the question that had been bothering me.

“So, who is your companion?”

Beside Linaria sat a cat-clan maid, pouring an extra cup of tea. She had long, glossy raven hair and yellow eyes like lunar amber, a rarity that had run dry in the west of the continent. She stood even shorter than Tina, Lynne, and Alice, and her black tail swayed lazily.

I can’t sense her mana. And that maid uniform doesn’t come from the kingdom. Who is she?

The domineering, crimson-haired witch ignored my question and tapped me on the forehead. “It’s nothing terribly pressing, but seeing as I am the world’s nicest person, I thought I’d give a hopeless little wolf cub who still barely appreciates his position a word of advice. Be grateful, and say a prayer for me every morning and night.”

“You don’t say,” I managed.

The mystery maid set a teacup and saucer before me with a clink. I nodded my thanks, but I couldn’t read the emotion in her amber eyes.

Linaria withdrew her finger and stared into the blue vault of heaven, where a flock of sea-green griffins soared. “The long age of the Star Oath—what that mess of a Dark Lord would call ‘the planet’s nap time’—has lasted since the last gods passed, but it won’t last much longer. I know what that will mean for the dragons, but who knows if it will be a blessing or a curse for mortalkind.” She lowered her gaze and looked me in the eye. “Allen of the wolf clan, you’re in the center of it all. When all Eight Great Elementals come together, you’ll have to make a choice as the last key—a choice between dawn and a return to night.”

A cool breeze brushed my cheek. My heart sank. I sipped my tea and felt its bitter flavor spread through my mouth. “I could never— Ow!”

The maid gave my forehead a merciless flick, anger and reproach in her amber eyes.

Th-That hurt more than when Lydia does it. Could she be...?

“See that? You upset her,” Linaria said. “Don’t take everything so seriously. You can hold your own against anyone as long as you don’t sell yourself short. My little brother was the same way. Not that either of you can beat me, of course. You’ll never get that ring off!” Her fair, dainty hand tousled my hair. “All of you living now get to decide how you’ll build the new age. Keep your nose to the grindstone!”

I’m no match for this witch—although I would like to do something about her ring.

I finished my tea and stood. “I’ll do my level best.”

“Good.”

The world began to crumble, returning to a white void. The crimson-haired witch locked eyes with the cat-eared maid—who held North Star, although I hadn’t noticed it earlier—and raised her teacup.

“Oh, one last thing. Let’s review something I touched on once before.” The icy cold of a witch filled Twin Heavens’ eyes. “The Etherfield bloodline had run its course even in my day. To survive, they threw themselves into dubious research. They seriously attempted to transplant their own minds into objects. Do you honestly believe a house obsessed with experiments that absurd could have hung on for another few centuries?”

✽

I groaned as my consciousness slowly surfaced. My belly and the back of my head felt warm. Sensing a soft brightness, I opened my eyes. Felicia, who had been resting my head on her lap, opened her own eyes wide and burst into tears, not even bothering to stop her hat from falling. Anko added a meow from atop my stomach.

“A-Allen, are you hurt?! T-Tina cast a healing spell on you—and I did too, f-for what it’s worth.” Felicia sniffled. “I mean, y-you protected us.”

I levitated the military hat from among the flowers where it had fallen and restored it to her head. Then I seized Silver Bloom, which lay beside me, and stood. “I feel right as rain, thanks to you. I appreciate it.”

“I sh-should be the one thanking you.” Felicia hesitated. “Thank you...very much.”

“I’ll always be ready to help my dear students and head clerk. Can you stand?”

“Y-Yes.” The bespectacled girl took my hand and rose. Flower petals clung to the sleeves and hem of her uniform, then vanished.

Well now.

A rainbow profusion of flowers carpeted the circular space in which we stood. What I could only assume was natural light filtered down from the arched ceiling visible high overhead. There was assuredly magic at work, but the specifics eluded me. The mana reminded me of the sanctuaries. The flowers appeared to grow only in this open space. Beyond a ring of columns modeled, I assumed, on the seven dragons and the World Tree stood only row upon row of bookcases. The whole arrangement resembled the Sealed Archive before the Great Tree had rendered it inaccessible—and it also recalled Tina’s room.

We were still standing there when a platinum-haired young noblewoman alighted next to me in a flurry of snowflakes, rod in hand. Her cloak and white garments showed no obvious damage. She must have gone out scouting.

“Sir!”

Tina cried out, relief flooding her face, then immediately puffed up her cheeks and glared at me like an irate squirrel. That ever-expressive lock of hair bent at a sharp angle, and even her snow-white ribbon managed to look darkly foreboding.

“Good morning,” she said slowly.

“Umm... T-Tina, I don’t quite understand why you’re glowering at me,” I ventured, daunted—although that didn’t stop me from taking out my pocket watch to check the time and frowning myself. It had stopped. I could sense Lydia’s and Stella’s mana, but distantly. And they seemed to be fighting.

Did the apostles attack? We haven’t a moment to lose.

“Tina,” I began again, “tell me what you learned scou—”

“While you were resting on Felicia’s lap, sir, I cast the detection spell I’ve been practicing. I failed to locate an exit or any sign of life. I left this open area, but the bookshelves just go on and on. I don’t think there can be any doubt that we’ve found the so-called ‘Shiki archive.’” The platinum-haired girl dropped her gaze to the flowers and grumbled, “Why did you have to wake up so soon? I wanted to rest your head on my lap too.”

I forced a laugh.

“Y-You can’t argue with the luck of the draw,” said Felicia. Evidently, the girls had fought a battle of their own while I answered Linaria’s summons.

I struck the ground with the butt of my rod and cast the experimental octo-elemental spell Eightfold Divine Detection. Forces of fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, ice, light, and darkness sped off in all directions. The response they eventually returned made me shudder.

There’s no end to this place? And this mana...

I interrupted the spell and turned to the girls, who stood clasping each other’s hands. “Did either of you see anything when we were teleported here?”

“Well...” Tina paused in thought. “There was a black void with a bunch of glowy things flitting around in it!”

“I s-saw the same thing,” said Felicia. “It was like that star chart you showed me at the company.”

Pieces of information were coalescing into a picture. The outer gate we had touched functioned like the black teleportation gate in the Sealed Archive, only orders of magnitude more powerful. I couldn’t begin to guess where it had flung us to. If this place was in the process of sanctification, it might not belong to the world we normally inhabited at all. In short, the Shiki archive was the model from which the Sealed Archive had derived. And it drew its power from...

“Tina, Felicia, this way,” I said and started walking.

“R-Right!” The girls followed, clinging to my coat and gasping in admiration as icy butterflies took flight and emerald glows began to shine.

No wonder Linaria came to speak to me. I’m sure Carina would have too, if there’d been time.

The band on my right ring finger blazed bright, and the bracelet exuded inky mana. I only hoped it wouldn’t have untoward effects on Stella.

As we advanced, our destination came into view. From the center of the open area rose a stone pedestal, with North Star embedded deep in it at an angle. Sure enough, the sword had been teleported too.

The girls called to me nervously.

“Unlike the Sealed Archive,” I said, “this place is still ‘alive.’ It gets its power from...”

I raised Silver Bloom, temporarily unblocking our perceptions, and a black gate twinkling with dark crystal flowers appeared in the foundation directly beneath the pedestal.

“Wh-What’s that?!” Felicia cried. Tina let out a shriek, and the two of them grabbed my arms.

“It means we’re in the seventh altar,” I explained. “That said, most of its power seems to be going toward maintaining the archive, so I doubt we have anything to fear.”

Ross Howard had told me that a black gate’s power was too great for any mortal, yet this place kept it under perfect control. I supposed we had the Gemstone’s handiwork to thank.

Anko meowed, urging me to action.

“Very well,” I said reluctantly. I could think later; it was time to do what we’d come for.

I told the girls to stand back, just in case, then touched the pedestal and wished for the book I needed. I felt a tiny flicker of utterly alien mana. A strange circle drew itself in midair, and the Bibliophage’s timeworn tome appeared. It opened of its own accord, stuck out its tongue, and shook the air with its laughter.

“A spell book with a t-tongue?” Tina gasped. “Like the one Lady Shise had?”

“A-Allen!” Felicia quailed. “I-Is it me, or is that book a-alive?!”

Meanwhile, I consulted the illustrious feline familiar.

So we have the right book. But what are we supposed to do with it?

The formulae at the root of its magic were so foreign to me that I couldn’t begin to tamper with them.

The Alverns have the first volume, but it’s supposed to be thoroughly sealed. Even Alice and Lady Shise might not have experience with the real thing. But either way, we got to the second volume before the apostles did. Now we just need to seal off this archive for a while.

Sensing the sacred sword in the void, I glanced at the young noblewoman. “Tina, wake up Lena and—”

“Wh-What’s this mana?!” Tina shouted.

I groaned. Felicia yelped. Flower petals whirled, electricity arced through the archive’s sky, and a screech echoed all around us. The nimble tome shook itself and fluttered for shelter. A black flower bloomed in the air, barely hanging together, and disgorged a man with azure hair and eyes.

“Relinquish the tome and North Star, defective key,” he snarled. His white robe with its azure-edged hood and his antique wooden staff were covered in rents, eloquently proclaiming the difficulty that infiltrating the archive had posed even to someone of his unfathomable powers.

But his mana is different.

“I see you’ve had trouble getting here,” I jeered, signing to Tina with my fingers, “especially for someone who calls himself the Sage and prime apostle, Aster Etherfield. And you’ve come in your own body today. Did you get tired of hiding it?”

“You think you’re clever, mock beast?!”

Aster’s fury raised an icy wind. Flowers froze, turned black, and crumbled.

“Very well!” A sadistic light entered his azure eyes, and he thrust his staff at Tina. “I’ll tear you limb from limb before the Thunder Fox’s and Frigid Crane’s very eyes and sacrifice you on the final altar with that impossible cursed child there! Her bottomless despair will manifest a devil with at least eight wings, enabling me to strike down the Hero, the Dark Lord, and the seven dragons even without all the great spells in my possession! What do I need with that church of fools and their false idol, the Saint?! I shall restore the glory of the Etherfields from the pit into which Twin Heavens plunged it!”

The whole archive trembled with the immensity of his mana, and some of its lights went out. The jet-black ice was spreading.

Let me guess: He sent other apostles to keep Lydia, Stella, and the maids busy while he went in alone, but he ran into more trouble than he expected, and now he’s in a temper. But he also thinks the archive is the last altar, and that’s making him anxious. If I can exploit his impatience...

“A-Allen—”

“Anko, I leave Felicia in your care.”

I interrupted the bespectacled girl, who was working up her courage even as she trembled in fear, and entrusted her to the feline familiar just as we’d arranged. Then I called my student.

“Tina.”

“I’ll never lose while I’ve got you, sir!” Her Highness declared, wrapping her snow-white ribbon around her rod.

Girls really do grow up so fast.

I strengthened our link and brought our rods together. The orbs set in them blazed with light.

“Here and now, we’re going to put an end to Prime Apostle Aster Etherfield, the Sage!” I shouted. “I’d appreciate your help.”

“You have it, Allen!” Tina responded.

“Senseless prattle!” Aster roared, beside himself with irritation, and scythed his staff through the air. A black blizzard sprang up. He surpassed Io and probably rivaled even the vampiress Alicia Coalfield. Whether or not he was the genuine Sage, the sorcerer had undoubtedly earned the right to call himself the prime apostle.

Anko, hurry up with Felicia if you possibly can! I pleaded silently and adjusted my grip on Silver Bloom.

✽

My shining azure rapier severed the half-monstrous Yz’s arm of ice. His writhing formulae and icy scales froze for a moment but quickly started regrowing.

“See what you make of this, then!” I multi-cast the advanced spell Swift Ice Lances from the staff in my left hand. Freezing javelins pinned the apostle to the ground, and I shouted, “Mina! Romy!”

“Yes, Lady Stella!” the dependable seconds-in-command responded at once. Mina pelted Yz with a hail of shining arrows from her war bow, shattering his shields of black ice and perforating his flesh. The black-haired, bespectacled Romy gave a mighty leap, bringing her war hammer crashing down from overhead.

Yz bellowed in agony and unflinchingly severed his own feet with the blade of ice and blood in his right hand. He threw himself backward, dodging the hammer at the last moment. Romy’s strike scarred the ground and felled trees.

How could he bring himself to do such a thing, even if he can heal from it?

Billowing dust and ash from blazing trees temporarily obscured my vision. I took the moment to adjust my grip on my rapier and staff and to ascertain the state of the battle. Lydia and Anna were farthest from the gate, keeping up a breakneck fight with the vampiress Alicia Coalfield. The exchange of superhuman sword blows reshaped the landscape, while a barrage of fire magic fed a growing inferno. At that very moment, Lydia dodged Anna’s “strings” to scythe Cresset Fox at the sneering, airborne Alicia and cast two Firebirds at once. The supreme spells should have permitted no defense. And yet...

“A capacity for regeneration is always a headache,” Anna sighed, while Lydia clicked her tongue in irritation.

“I haven’t had nearly my fill of dancing yet. You simply must do more to entertain me!” The black-clad vampiress took the blow with relish and met the deadly birds with her closed parasol, skewering and crushing them with her bottomless mana and instantly regrowing her scorched skin. Mr. Allen’s improved Firebird had an effect even on Alicia, outstripping her powers of unconditional regeneration to leave its mark, yet it seemed incapable of dealing a decisive blow.

We must defeat Yz quickly and go to their aid.

Clang! The noise of breaking metal rang in my ears as, up ahead, a heavily armed spell-soldier fell to the onslaught of a colossal white rabbit—conjured by Chitose, the Howard Maid Corps’s number five. Officers from both corps and the under-duke’s knights were fighting hard.

It seems safe to leave that front to them for—

The three of us started as an icy wind dispersed the dust and the grotesque apostle Yz appeared before us. The arm I had severed, the many holes Mina had shot in him, and the feet he had hacked off himself had all finished healing.

That was too fast, even for a man who’s absorbed vestiges of Resurrection and the blood of the ice wyrm.

“Lady Stella, how shall we proceed?” Romy shifted her hammer to a one-handed grip and fixed me with a questioning look.

I swung my staff, multi-casting the advanced spell Momentary Flash Ray before answering. Beams of light pierced Yz, holding him at bay while I called to the second-in-command of my own house’s maids, perched on a tree branch with her war bow drawn.

“Mina, buy me a little time!”

“You may depend upon it!” A magical arrow took flight and split in midair. Thousands of shafts joined my own spells, becoming a tempest of light.

“OuT OF My waY!” Yz approached one step at a time, defending himself with shields of dark ice and healing his wounds.

“Don’t you think it’s odd, Romy?” I asked to organize my thoughts. “We’ve hammered Yz with a considerable number of spells in a short span of time. And yet...”

What rays and arrows the apostle failed to block shredded his limbs. Yet despite the damage to his body, he swung his ghastly sword of ice and blood as though it had a life of its own. Mina retreated into the air to avoid the blow, which chopped through every tree in its path, leaving frozen timber smeared with ominous bloodstains.

Yz roared with laughter at the sight. “Alf, ALF, ALf!” He yelled his late son’s name again and again.

I grimaced and shook my head. “Look at him. Our spells have no effect. I fought the monster that Gerard became in the city of craft, so I know how brutal Resurrection can be to face, but it must have a limit.”

We would only wear ourselves out fighting like this, but I couldn’t figure out the apostle’s trick.

What would Mr. Allen do?

Romy glared at the monstrosity advancing almost heedlessly through Mina’s hail of arrows, adjusted her spectacles, and spun her hammer in a full circle. “Lady Stella, I will deliver a blow with all my might. Please take the opportunity to penetrate his secret.”

“B-But then—” I shook my head, clearing it of hesitation. “I will certainly try.”

Accepting help is harder than it seems. Isn’t it, Mr. Allen?

I refocused and called to the flaxen-haired maid who had fought so fiercely on my behalf. “Mina, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting!”

“What could make a maid happier than to toil for the young lady she adores? Full marks,” came the cheery response from atop a nearby rock. But Mina’s sleeves and skirt were torn, and I could see blood seeping through. She was at a disadvantage in a drawn-out battle.

The orb on my staff flickered, and my bombardment of Momentary Flash Rays came to an end. Yz only barely retained his human shape, but he crushed a huge fallen tree underfoot and glared, channeling even greater mana into his blade. He was going to charge.

The Leinster Maid Corps’s petite second-in-command strode forward, whirling her massive war hammer above her head. “Mina, I would appreciate your support.”

“Hmm...” Mina demurred. “Offer a reward first, Romy. Then we’ll talk.”

“When this battle is over, I will arrange an exhibition of our private store of video orbs of the young ladies, to be hosted by the Howard Maid Corps.”

“Deal! Now let’s give him what for!”

They bantered for all the world as though the battle were not enough to make one shudder. First Romy dashed off, then Mina leapt from her rock and followed.

Yz’s dark eyes widened. Assured of his advantage, his lips curled in delight.

“GlorY!” he shouted, thrusting his blade into the ground. “GLOry to brING My boY ALf bacK TO Me!”

More icy spikes than I could count sprouted in the maids’ path, aiming to skewer them.

Watch out!

The next thing I knew, Romy leaned forward without apparent effort, her hammer balanced on her shoulder.

“I’ve been saving this one for a special occasion!” Mina chirped, drawing back her bow and loosing an arrow of inky magic. It struck the spikes bearing down on Romy and spawned a sphere of darkness that swallowed everything it touched.

I-Isn’t that the same kind of dark magic that the professor and Anko use?!

I wasn’t alone in my surprise. Yz froze, dumbfounded—and Romy, who had come from the southern isles and worked her way up to second-in-command of the Leinster Maid Corps, would never overlook such an opening. She darted into striking distance and brought her hammer around with a bloodcurdling war cry. It struck Yz’s phalanx of dark-ice shields from the side, pulverizing them along with his compound barrier, before slamming into his monstrous left side and launching him off his feet.

“Lady Stella!” both maids called, just as I cast the bi-elemental purification spell Immaculate Snow-Gleam over a wide area. White and azure snowflakes showered Yz in midair, briefly vying with his regenerative abilities. Concealed currents of mana came to light.

What?

I gaped at the unbelievable truth. No wonder he had seemed invincible.

“YOU THink thAT Will stOP Me?!” Yz roared, landing and raising his sword of blood and ice to resist the snowflakes. My purification spell lost the battle and faded away.

But now I know your trick!

“Mina, Romy.” I worked a wind spell, relaying Yz’s secret to the maids, along with a plan.

I know it can work. The problem is, I only have the skill for one attempt.

The seconds-in-command curtsied, sparing only one hand to hold their skirts as they laughed at the already recovered apostle.

“Certainly!” chirped Mina.

“I will give my life if necessary,” Romy informed me.

“No, you will not. Under no circumstances. I forbid it,” I said in no uncertain terms and cast the new supreme spell Frost-Gleam Hawks. Paired birds of ice dove from the sky. My rapier and staff absorbed them and took on an azure shine. “Mr. Allen Alvern, the Shooting Star, detests few things more than a victory built on sacrifice.”

Yz hurled a swarm of blood-ice daggers, only for them all to bounce off my Azure Shields and disintegrate. I darted past the maids, who seemed ready to applaud, and activated my other new secret art: the Azure Sword.

“I feel certain that defeating the apostles here will prove a significant victory,” I told the black-haired maid in my usual tone, squaring off with Yz while he poured mana into a greatsword of frozen blood. “At the same time, trading your life for theirs would mean defeat. Mr. Allen would never look at me the same way again. Neither would Lydia, Lynne, Lily, or any other Leinster. You’re quite popular, Romy.”

“If you say so, my lady. I give my solemn word to vanquish the enemy without sustaining a scratch.” Her eyes registered surprise and pleasure, and she started layering on more strength-enhancing magic. “Now, to business.”

Yz likewise began to transform the mana-charged blade in his right hand.

We’ll make our next clash the last!

Yz opened his crimson eyes and mouth wide and shook the very air with his scream.

“DiE! Die fOR My gloRY! DIE To brinG BACk mY SOn!”

I raced along the ground, forming two wings of white and azure behind me. Lightly, I left the ground and shouted to the maids, “Shall we?!”

“Yes, Lady Stella!” they chorused.

I took the lead with my array of Azure Shields. Mina followed, several of those black arrows nocked to her bowstring. Romy brought up the rear with her massive war hammer on her shoulder.

Yz’s greatsword had branched into many blades of frozen blood, but it held still.

“Lady Stella, Romy, forward!” Mina shouted, great beads of sweat standing out on her forehead as she fired dark shafts in rapid succession. Hundreds, then thousands of icy spikes vanished into the pitch-black cubes they manifested.

Romy and I charged ahead, with me in the air and her on the ground. Irritated by our progress, Yz let out an earsplitting screech and swung down his sword at last. It now boasted at least a dozen freezing crimson blades. Fallen trees, stones, and even the ground closed in on us, cursed by the bloody slash. But I felt no fear—not now. How could I?

I crossed my rapier and staff in mid-flight, fusing my Azure Sword and Azure Shields. Amid the light streaming from the orb atop my staff, I dispelled every sanguine blade and dove at the grotesque apostle.

“Azure Spear!”

My spiral lance of ice and light pierced his scaly, formulae-covered left side like tissue paper. Escaping mana turned the area into a sheet of ice alive with glows. Yz tried to regenerate, his face a mask of rage. Unfortunately for him...

“WH-WhY?! Wh-WhY DOes mY BOdy noT HEal?!”

I kicked off the massive trunk of a half-frozen tree, reversing course in midair. “Didn’t you know? My magician is a marvel,” I told Yz, who stayed frozen thanks to countermeasures Mr. Allen had devised against the great spells. “Romy!”

The black-haired, bespectacled second-in-command sprinted up a newly formed hill of ice and leapt high into the air. A surge of mana flickered from her petite figure. She gripped her great hammer in both hands...

“That’s enough of you!”

...and slammed it down with all the force of her body and spirit. The overhead swing collided with a defensive stroke of Yz’s greatsword. For a moment, they struggled, generating a massive shock wave. Still airborne, I channeled all my mana into a swing of my Azure Sword and shouted:

“Mina!”

“Lady Stella! The fullest of full marks!” the flaxen-haired maid responded at once, loosing a black arrow as big as a javelin at the sword of frozen blood.

Both our attacks sank deep into their target: the blade fending off the hammer blow. Fresh blood gushed from Yz’s cracked lips, and we cleaved clean through his weapon with ease.

A moment later, more blood erupted from the misshapen blade. In no time at all, it turned to ash and crumbled, reverberating with something like a scream. This was the real Yz—the reason for his invincibility.

Having lost the core of their mana, the formulae covering the left half of the apostle’s body let out a death rattle and started disintegrating into ash as well. Yz fell to his hands and knees. While his body crumbled into fine gray powder, the apostle—no, Miles Talito, leader of the Heaven and Earth Party of the Lalannoy Republic—crawled on the ground and wailed at the top of his lungs. The bizarre spectacle left us speechless, unable to move.

Miles strained a cracked, desiccated arm toward a lone shaft of sunlight. “A-Alf... Y-Your Holiness, please, r-return my boy to...”

All he was turned to ash. Thus passed the man who had incited civil war in Lalannoy, all to resurrect his dear, departed son.

I know he was an enemy, but I can’t help pitying him. He was quite literally a sacrificial pawn.

Dispelling my icy wings and my secret art, I turned my attention to the next order of business. All the spell-soldiers seemed to have fallen. Chitose’s rabbits and lions made of water ran to and fro, treating the wounded. I saw no dead, thank goodness. As for Lydia’s battle...

The severed end of a black parasol embedded itself in the ground nearby. A black hat drifted down after it and caught on a crooked branch. Lydia and Anna landed with conflicted looks on their faces. The vampiress, meanwhile, alighted on a boulder and squinted down at us with an air of disappointment. Her black dress hung in tatters, but she bore no wound worth mentioning.

“What’s this? Has little Yz breathed his last? I suppose it goes to show there’s only so much you can do to reinforce a fragile vessel. Hmm...” The vampiress touched a thin, pale finger to her chin, lost in thought—and abruptly clapped her hands. “All right. That’s enough for today.”

“Excuse me?” The Lady of the Sword’s knuckles whitened as she gripped Cresset Fox.

“Lady Lydia.” Anna restrained her with one hand.

“Tell me,” Alicia addressed Lydia despite her overwhelming disadvantage—at least numerically, “you’ve made a pact with that boy, haven’t you? And linked mana too.”

Lydia made no reply. Jealousy surged within me, but now was not the time.

“A key—even a defective key—must have tremendous power,” the vampiress continued, her words dripping scorn. “Wade too deep, and you might never make it back to shore. Are you certain that’s what you want? To sacrifice your whole life to that—”

“I knew you were brainless.” Cresset Fox whipped out, scoring a thin line on the motionless Alicia’s cheek. Lady Lydia Leinster’s scarlet tresses rose around her. “That’s the one thing I do want. Before, now, and forever.”

Blood trickled down the vampiress’s cheek and soaked into the stone. Her face twisted and crumpled. “I envy you a little. Just a little.”

A black flower—a teleportation circle—appeared behind Alicia.

“I’ll see you again, Lady Leinster of the Sword. And when I do, we’ll continue in earnest, to the death. Give my regards to the gallant wolf cub.”

With those words, she was gone.

“Did she...withdraw?” I murmured, unable to follow the bizarre turn events had taken.

Lydia stared grimly into empty space for a while, then exhaled and said, “Anna, see to the wounded. And send someone back to camp at once.”

“Yes, Lady Lydia.” The Leinsters’ head maid briskly set about issuing orders, showing no sign of fatigue.

Alicia attacking with an inadequate force and then retreating, leaving only the prime apostle behind, doesn’t sit right with me at all. On the other hand...

“Lydia, we should go in too,” I said to the brooding Lady of the Sword.

“Yes, we should.”

We exchanged nods.

Surveying the potent wards around the yet undamaged ruins, Lydia returned Cresset Fox to its scabbard. “Now let’s hurry up and do something about it. I couldn’t take the indignity of Tiny teasing me about this later. And more than anything...”

A wind rustled our hair.

Lydia massaged her forehead and muttered an incomprehensible complaint. “I don’t want a lecture from our lab’s resident sister-in-law.”

✽

A dreadful crash echoed through the mysterious archive, shaking it to its foundations. The raging black blizzard reached all the way to my shelter, the bookcases on the edge of the open area. Ice spread over floors and stairs. I didn’t see the wonderful black cat who had teleported me to relative safety. Anko had warned me not to stick my head out, but I would need to figure something out on my own.

I whimpered, raising hands I couldn’t move for fear and casting a feeble attempt at an ice-resistant barrier. “I think you might have a knack for barriers, Felicia,” Stella had told me during our Royal Academy days. “I agree,” Caren had added. “Why not make that your focus?” But for all my best friends’ praise, I was powerless in a real fight.

The floor shuddered again. Frozen books fell off shelves and shattered. I struggled to hold off an onslaught of anxiety that made my teeth chatter.

What should I do if...if anything happens to Allen or Tina?

Fighting back tears, I ignored Anko’s warning and peered around the bookcase. The field of flowers I’d just been standing in had transformed into a dark, frozen wasteland. The apostle hovered in the air, slamming down chunks of black ice bigger than cars one after another. The young sorcerer with dark-brown hair sliced through several with swings of his rod, continuing his daring advance.

“Allen,” I murmured, standing and pressing a hand to my heart, ignoring the flecks of ice that stuck to the ends of my hair.

Allen landed on a chunk of ice sticking out of the floor and cast some kind of spell. The next instant, a platinum-haired girl appeared over the apostle’s head with her rod held high. A howl split the air, and a Blizzard Wolf, the supreme spell every person in the kingdom recognized as the symbol of Howard authority, sprang on the apostle and slammed him to the ground in its jaws. I saw Allen catch the girl while shards of flower and ice whirled high into the air; then a freezing mist rose to block my view.

“Tina really is something else,” I muttered. “She’s even younger than me, but look at that magic.”

I knew what I was feeling: admiration and jealousy. I’d understood—or I’d thought I understood—that no matter how hard I worked, I would never be able to fight at Allen’s side. But I could help him in other ways. I’d left the Royal Academy believing that, and I’d kept working toward it in my own way ever since. But right now, I was powerless—just baggage weighing Allen down.

I was so pathetic I couldn’t not cry about it. I crouched down on the spot, hugging my knees and hanging my head.

Why would the archive want someone like—

I felt warmth on my legs and heard a mew.

“Anko?” I hastily wiped my tears, and the newly returned black cat hopped onto my left shoulder. “Huh?”

Magic I didn’t understand communicated a suggestion that took me aback. I let out a garbled exclamation and stared hard at the beautiful familiar.

“I...I’ve never heard of a spell like that. Wh-Why would you pick me?!”

The black cat gave a sharp meow.

An electric jolt shot through me, and my eyes widened. “That time...the Dark Lord’s messenger touched me.”

Y-You mean Anko got ready for this situation all the way back then?

Apparently, there was something special about the “very old magic” we were about to do. To deploy it, let alone activate it, required mana from the white messenger cat and Anko, as well as a place full of...elementals, I guessed, like this archive. Of course, it wouldn’t work on just anyone either.

“Wait, what?” I gaped at Anko. “That white cat is ‘an old acquaintance’ you’re ‘kind of stuck with’? You mean the Dark Lord’s messenger? Anko, what on earth are you?”

The icy black mist gained speed, gathering into the open area. Even I could feel the apostle’s terrifying mana clear as day. We were out of time. I drew a breath, closed my eyes, and steeled myself.

“I don’t really get it, but all right! I’ll get Allen to fill in the details when it’s all over.” I lowered Anko to the floor, took off my hat, beat the dust from it, and put it back on. Standing proud, I said, “Okay, I’m all yours. Oh, but I can’t afford to die or not be able to do my job anymore. Allen would get mad at me, and I’ve got lots more work I want to do! And I shouldn’t have to say this, but you’re not allowed to end up like that either, Anko.”

The black cat blinked its moon-coral-yellow eyes and gave an uncharacteristically troubled mew.

I thrust out my finger. “No, you’re not ‘under an obligation to try.’ That’s nonnegotiable!”

With a meow, an intricate magic circle spread under my feet, and black and white petals started to swirl. I closed my eyes, clasped my hands, and offered a quiet prayer.

“Please let me dream—even if it’s fleeting—that I, too, can fight alongside the boy I love.”

✽

I pierced the hail of black ice with Thunder Fang Spear, conjuring the advanced spell on Silver Bloom’s tip, and unleashed a Firebird. The supreme fire spell evaporated ice chunks, bearing down on the airborne Aster Etherfield.

I’ve got him this time!

“None of your attempts will ever reach me, defective key—Allen of the wolf clan,” came a glacial pronouncement, and the azure-haired, azure-eyed apostle flicked his staff. Chains of black ice materialized from thin air, enmeshing the avian menace and tearing it apart.

It’s hopeless! The difference in our mana is insurmountable!

Even magical interference, my specialty, had lost its effect in the face of his encryption. True to the professor’s and Mr. Walker’s reports of their battle in the royal capital, Aster’s choice of spells seemed more typical of a knight than of a sorcerer, but that was merely a question of degree. I still didn’t fancy my odds. It was with mounting desperation that I conjured ice mirrors to check my fall.

Aster looked down at me without interest and snapped his fingers. Axes of dark ice swarmed me, spinning as they came. I narrowly avoided them all, combining the bi-elemental spell Iced Lightning Sprint with experimental flight magic. Landing in the open area, now a sheet of dark ice except for the center where North Star stood lodged in the pedestal, I raised my rod to work a new spell and—

“Oh no you don’t!” Tina shouted, interrupting the showdown and rescuing me with the advanced spell Twin Icicle Pillars.

I steadied myself in front of the out-of-breath young noblewoman, who still had her snow-white ribbon tied around her rod, and gazed up from the withered garden at the man above. Prime Apostle Aster Etherfield, the Sage, hadn’t moved since the battle began. I had tried every trick in my book, but even with Tina’s support, I couldn’t seem to get past his guard.

I never dreamed I’d meet a human with more mana than Tina. The world is bigger than I— Wait. Is that really possible?

The church had made a habit of “modifying” its members, not even drawing a line at transmogrification.

In which case, even Aster’s seemingly infinite mana supply must have an explanation.

“You’ve made yourself quite a nuisance, but it appears you’ve run out of tricks,” the apostle sneered down with naked contempt.

Neither Tina nor I answered. He undeniably outclassed us, and I was preoccupied scraping together everything I’d learned about him in an effort to deduce his identity.

“I bear more than a century of Etherfield history on my shoulders,” Aster continued flatly, touching the azure trim of his hood. “The likes of you could never best me, especially not now that the Frigid Crane and the Thunder Fox have nearly exhausted their power. You must have driven them hard.”

So he knows what state Atra and Lena are in. He makes it sound obvious.

The apostle pointed at me. “Your skill in close combat is impressive, for a sorcerer. I suppose you’ve built on Leinster and beastfolk martial arts. I might even consider praising you.”

Every apostle and would-be apostle I had faced thus far had underestimated me, at least subconsciously. To them, I’d been “just a wolf-clan foundling,” houseless and lacking mana. Aster, however, analyzed me with cold impartiality.

Dark, icy winds whirled, hemming us in. A freezing mist began to form.

“But you remain several leagues below the Comet and the Lady of the Sword.”

Ice sculptures started crackling into being, armed with swords, spears, and more besides, and well over a hundred strong.

Not good.

I gripped my rod so hard it hurt and clenched my teeth.

“Therefore,” Aster concluded, “I need merely sculpt enough crude soldiers to overwhelm you. A simple solution.”

“That won’t—”

“Tina!” I grabbed the young noblewoman on the verge of hurling Swift Ice Lances in all directions, multi-cast the advanced spell Imperial Earth Ramparts, and dove behind it.

“Naturally, I shall support their assault from the rear,” I heard Aster add while a tempest of frozen missiles wore down our walls. “I can hardly wait to see what monstrosity the altar will birth from a defective key and the Lady of Ice’s cursed child.”

The orderly tramp of the ice soldiers was closing in.

We’ll be in trouble if she doesn’t make it here soon.

The girl in my arms turned pale and looked at me. “S-Sir!”

“Tina,” I began at the same moment. The conversation paused, forestalled by our poor timing.

We looked up, stunned. Aster held his staff high, focusing a potent mass of mana. Freezing black rain pelted down.

It’s no Falling Star, but he means to crush us and his soldiers under a massive block of ice!

The prime apostle transfixed us with his frosty gaze. “Die. Die and become sacrifices to my cause.”

The superior sorcerer let his mana do the talking, bombarding his inferior opponents—us—with spell after mighty spell. An orthodox tactic, and well chosen.

There’s only one thing for it. I’ll cast every supreme spell I know, all at once and with all the force I can muster!

Rod in hand, I stood poised to strike back—when the light click of a trigger rang out, and a flash pierced the periphery of icy mist. A rapid volley of black and white spell-bullets caught the oncoming sculptures in their cores with unfailing precision and shot through the block of ice hanging over us from all angles, obliterating both.

D-Don’t I know this mana from...? Did it work?!

Amid a shower of magical lights, I took Tina by the hand and studied Aster. For the first time, the prime apostle looked confused. No doubt he found it hard to believe that anyone could break his spells so easily.

A girl landed lightly on what little the ice storm had left of our walls. She wore spectacles and a black military uniform, complete with hat. Though small, she had a buxom figure. Cat ears poked through her long light-chestnut hair, a tail swayed behind her, and her piercing eyes were the yellow of lunar coral. And her slender hands held a long spell-gun I’d never seen before, elegant and cloaked in a sacred aura. Intricate white engravings dotted its length, doubtless to amplify the power of its shots. It also boasted a grip I’d never seen on a Lalannoyan gun, perhaps to reduce recoil from its uncanny rate of fire.

“Felicia?” a dazed Tina called from beside me.

The girl remained silent and made no response. Her cold gaze fixed on the airborne apostle like a hunter eyeing her prey.

“Impossible.” Aster’s staff creaked in his grip. “That form. Those eyes. And is that the divine gun Much-Mourned Autumn Moon, the last work of the Gemstone’s life? That makes you the night cat. But you should have no way of manifesting now that the World Tree’s power has ebbed to such a...”

His azure eyes flashed irritation, heedless of the information he was letting slip. The turn events had taken must have baffled even a man of his apparent years.

Aster glared down the barrel of the divine gun trained on him. “Inconceivable. Such a thing cannot be!”

In his rage, he filled the air around him with swarming javelins of ice, too numerous to count. Meanwhile, the cat-eared girl glanced at us, flicked her tail, and sprang high into the air. She charged into the fray, planting her feet on black cubes she had conjured and firing without mercy.

“Cat ears. A tail. Yellow eyes,” Tina murmured, awestruck by the girl hopping between floating cubes and putting spell-bullets through every one of the prime apostle’s spells. “S-Sir, is that who I think it is?!”

“That’s Anko, using Felicia’s body as a vessel,” I said with a shrug. My pupil had already worked out the answer herself. “I don’t know the details either. I’ve never seen anything like the spell formulae they’re using. But that aside, Tina...” I pointed to the back of the stunned girl’s right hand, where the mark of Frigid Crane shone bright. “It looks like Lena wants to help too, no matter how much it takes out of her. Let’s settle the score with Aster together!”

“Yes, sir!”

The girl seized my left hand with glad enthusiasm, and our mana link deepened. She let out a sweet sigh and raised a bashful hand to her cheek. Ice flakes blew to and fro, the orb atop Duchess Rosa’s rod in her hand shone, and ice gave her a head of long azure hair.

“We’ve done this twice now, huh?” The young noblewoman giggled shyly. Then her resolve showed through, and she set about weaving spells for all she was worth. A wintry gust fluttered the snow-white ribbon wrapped around her rod.

Above, a sobbing sound rang from Aster’s barrier as the cat-eared girl cleaved it in two with a black-and-white bayonet she had formed on the end of her gun.

“Damn you, animal!” the prime apostle spat, forced to retreat for the first time that day, skin showing through a rent in the trim and collar of his hood. He wasn’t bleeding. “You know the land where the Star Oath began! How dare you poke your interfering nose into the present day!”

Staggering mana slammed into the girl. Mere proximity tore fissures in the ice. But she took no notice. Her left hand touched the arm of her spectacles, and she opened her mouth slightly.

“What was that?” Aster demanded a moment later. The girl’s voice hadn’t reached us on the ground, where we were still weaving our spells, but she must have delivered quite an insult. The composure Aster had maintained thus far gave way completely, and the right hand he raised to cover his eyes trembled with fury. “You dare claim that I—I, who have borne the glorious house name of Etherfield through more than five centuries—am no Sage but a poor, laughable fool who doesn’t know the first thing about himself?”

More than five centuries?! Then he knows the age of strife firsthand?

Linaria’s words came back to me: “The Etherfield bloodline had run its course even in my day. To survive, they threw themselves into dubious research. They seriously attempted to transplant their own minds into objects. Do you honestly believe a house obsessed with experiments that absurd could have hung on for another few centuries?”

I could believe Aster’s ability to shrug off our attacks, but he had taken an awful lot of Anko’s without shedding a drop of blood. And the Etherfields had been researching silver-snow at Star’s End.

Is that the truth behind his inexhaustible mana? But wait. Could he keep his mind intact if it were?

While I arrived at a chilling surmise, the prime apostle filled the air with peals of laughter. The inhuman cacophony, like ice grating against metal, made Tina and me grimace. Even the cat-eared girl, perched on a black cube, furrowed her brow in displeasure.

Prime Apostle Aster Etherfield, the Sage, vanished and reappeared high overhead. One sweep of his staff, and pitch darkness swallowed the circular area in which we stood.

“Now die,” he said, activating a spell so great it shook the whole expanse of the endless archive. A circle took shape in one breath, and a tremendous lump of dark ice slowly began to emerge from it.

Tina looked up and gasped, her long azure hair bristling as she whispered its name:

“Falling Star.”

There’s no tricking our way around this spell. The next clash will decide the battle!

All preparations completed, I touched the ring and bracelet on my right hand.

I’d appreciate your help as well. This power is too much for me.

They flashed once or twice, as if to say, “Oh, all right” and “You need more practice.” The witch and the angel held me to a high standard.

I raised Silver Bloom a fraction toward the cat-eared girl, who was balanced on a cube with the divine gun resting on her left shoulder. “I have faith you’ll come through for us, Anko.”

I got no response, naturally, but I could tell she’d received my message. When Lydia and I had gotten to the university and been thrown into the professor’s lab half against our wills, it was the feline familiar who had done the most to make us feel at home.

I closed my eyes for a moment and held my right fist toward the girl with long azure hair. “Tina, I trust you to watch my back.”

The young noblewoman blushed. Not only that stray lock but her whole head of hair stood to attention. Casting hesitation to the winds, she bumped her own right fist against mine. “I won’t disappoint you, sir. I’m ready for anything!”

“That’s the spirit.”

Having completed his own preparations, Aster looked down at us through perhaps the strongest barrier I’d ever seen. He strained his cheeks, forming an automaton smile. “Even if I kill you, I can still sacrifice the fools outside to the altar. The resulting devil will pour in all the blood I need to reclaim the mighty power that was the Etherfields’ when gods walked the earth: a witch’s power! And with it, I can bend the planet itself to my will!”

So that’s what he’s really after. I wonder what the faithful followers of the Church of the Holy Spirit would say if they knew. Still, I can’t put my finger on it, but something tells me the false Saint has a different goal.

“So die!” Aster screeched. “My Falling Star will crush you to a bloody pulp!”

He swung down his staff. The vast lump of ice said in legend to have once wiped a small country off the map plummeted toward us.

Tina strode calmly in front of me and prayed.

“Lena, give me strength! Help me keep Mr. Allen safe!”

A blast of wind showered us with snow, and the orb on her rod flashed with blinding azure radiance. Then the light became myriad chains of ice, wrought in the likeness of feathers. They enmeshed the Falling Star, forcing it to slow its descent.

“More parlor tricks! But—”

“Now, Anko!” Tina shouted, drowning out Aster’s words.

The cat-eared girl had sat down atop her cube since I’d last looked at her, steadying the divine gun with her whole body as she fine-tuned her aim. Piercing mana—reminiscent of the dragons’ and the great elementals’ yet distinct from both—was converging on its muzzle. All wind ceased. And then...

“Divine Shot.”

There came Anko’s dispassionate voice and the light, metallic click of the trigger. I experienced a strange sensation, as if time stood still, while I glimpsed a blended black-and-white spell-bullet leave the muzzle.

“I-Impossible!” Aster screamed.

The shot flew true, punching clean through the heart of the Falling Star. The power of darkness was losing ground to light. A stunned Aster was splitting in two.

The cat-eared girls shot a look down at me without bothering to stand, spurring me onward.

“Allen!” shouted our obliging head clerk.

My university mentor added a grunt.

That’s one call I can’t refuse!

I cast my best Iced Lightning Sprint and made a mad dash at Aster, planting my feet on black cubes and Tina’s ice mirrors. An eight-winged Firebird took shape, lighting the darkness and clearing my path. I kicked off the Falling Star as it tumbled slowly earthward. Then...

“This ends now!” I shouted, teleporting a short distance with Black Cat Promenade, appearing directly above Aster’s head. Conjuring a blade of fire on Silver Bloom’s tip, I slammed it home with all the strength in my body.

Aster curled his lips in a sneer. “No defective key can penetrate my defenses!”

“No, I suppose not!” I forced myself to smile through the pain and placed my left hand on my heart—and drew. “That’s why I saved the best for last.”

Bright Night materialized in a flash of brilliant white mana, and I crossed its blade with my rod. Black flowers spilled from my bracelet, and the sacred sword Alice had entrusted to my care sucked them in. Aster’s once mighty barrier started to crumble.

“But how?!” he screeched. “That sword belongs to the Lady of Lightning! C-Curse you, Alvern! Have you lost even your grand-ducal pride?! But it will take more than that!” He hurled even more mana against me, hoping to rally.

I was afraid even this wouldn’t quite cut it. In which case...

I closed my eyes and linked with it.

“I-It can’t be! You imbecile! The flower orbs control the black gate! You would use their power to—”

Aster spluttered as my mana skyrocketed, overwhelming even him. The fiery point of my rod and the sacred white blade with its garlands of black flowers stabbed deep into the prime apostle’s heart. Shards of something like crystal scattered in place of blood. Then Frigid Crane’s power flooded me, along with Tina’s all-too-potent feelings, and everything froze solid.

My blades slipped free of Aster amid the rising blizzard, but he still shed not a drop of blood. I could see nothing in the falling man’s wound but a cracked octagonal crystal. There was no mistaking what it held: silver-snow. The man who had called himself the Sage and controlled an army of ice sculptures was himself an Etherfield puppet, I reflected as I hurtled through the air, my strength exhausted. Inky darkness enveloped me.

“Sir!” On the black cube to which Anko’s magic had teleported me, Tina peered down at me in concern and threw her arms around me.

The split halves of the Falling Star hadn’t stopped when Aster lost control. They continued their descent. But a tremor ran the length of the archive before they struck.

“A-An earthquake?” Tina asked.

“No,” I said slowly, “I don’t think so.”

I’m guessing that because I drew power from the flower orbs set in the black gate...

“The balance has collapsed. The archive has died.” The cat-eared girl removed her spectacles and narrowed her eyes. The orbs in the black gate and North Star continued to flicker. White and black mana mingled, starting to spread at an explosive rate.

So much for the other half of the Bibliophage’s tome and the signpost to the final altar, I guess.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. “Anko, if you would!”

Darkness swallowed us. I saw no sign of Aster, but the click of a trigger rang in my ears.

Epilogue

The first thing I felt was warmth.

Is someone holding me? No, it feels like more than that.

I groggily opened my eyes, and the truth became clear.

“I’m here for you, Allen,” Tina mumbled, clinging to my left arm. Atra and, to my surprise, Lia had secured my right arm, humming peacefully in their sleep.

“St-Stop it, Rosa,” murmured Lena, who was using my stomach for a pillow.

No wonder.

I slipped my hands free without waking anyone and touched the fluffy “bed.”

“A huge white rabbit?” I mused. “Did Chitose conjure it?”

I appeared to be in a makeshift tent, empty except for the great, curled-up rabbit on which I lay. I carefully slipped away and made my way through the cloth that hung over the entrance. The broader view brought a realization.

This isn’t the camp the maids set up for us. What’s this hill we’re on?

I was watching Howard and Leinster maids and the under-duke’s knights pitch more permanent tents when a bespectacled girl with light-chestnut hair walked by and noticed me.

“Allen! You’re—”

True to form, she squealed and nearly fell. I darted forward and caught her on my chest. “Really, Felicia. Don’t you know Ellie has a monopoly on tripping over nothing?”

“S-Sorry.” She stared at her feet and blushed in embarrassment. Several maids gasped and started surreptitiously readying video orbs as they worked.

D-Does nothing faze them?

“Did you carry us?” I asked, taking the bespectacled girl’s hand and steadying her.

“Me?! That would be the day. Anko did the heavy lifting. She’s not here now, though. Lydia and Stella took her somewhere. Oh, and it looks like they relocated our camp too.”

They must be going over what happened in the archive. That explains why Lydia isn’t here.

“A-Anyway, you gave me a fright.” Felicia grabbed my sleeve, eyes wet with tears. “You and Tina collapsed the moment we got outside. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Lydia and Stella are fine! And so is everyone else!”

“I’m sorry we put you through that.”

Still, Aster was a formidable threat. We couldn’t afford to worry about what came after the fight.

“Do you remember?” I asked Felicia.

“Yes, although it’s fuzzy. You and Tina were both amazing.”

I scratched the tip of my nose, embarrassed by her sincere praise.

“I still can’t understand why the Dark Lord’s messenger and Anko picked me, but I have figured out one thing.” Felicia withdrew her hand, took a few steps, and turned around. “I’m not cut out for this rough stuff. So...” She held up her left index finger and declared, “I’d like to go back to helping you with what I am good at!”

I had a feeling I knew what Anko and Kifune had seen in her. Yes, Felicia Fosse was no fighter, but she knew herself better than any of us, and she had the courage to forge boldly ahead.

“Is, um, that a problem?” the bespectacled girl asked, probably unsettled by my silence.

I bowed reverently. “Certainly not, President Felicia Fosse. What would I do without your continued support?”

“I...I’m not the president! This makes twice you’ve tried to pull that switcheroo! Get ready for a piece of my mind, because—”

A little scarlet bird alighted on my head.

A summons. That didn’t take long.

I tapped the head clerk on the forehead. “Watch Tina and the children for me. We can talk details this evening.”

“Oh, all right. But I’ll hold you to that.”

The pair awaited me on a hilltop commanding a wide view. Anko didn’t appear to be with them.

“Lydia, Stella,” I called as I climbed. Their reactions when they turned were a study in contrast.

The scarlet-haired Lady of the Sword maintained a stony silence. I noted scuff marks on her fighting clothes.

The platinum-haired Saint Wolf’s face lit up. “Mr. Allen!” She raced toward me. “How do you feel? I took the liberty of casting healing spells on you, but I can’t be certain they fixed everything.”

“My biggest worry is that I might get addicted to sleeping on rabbits,” I said. “You should give it a try later.”

“I will!”

Hmm... Disrespectful as it might be, I can’t help picturing a wagging tail behind Stella.

Lydia stood with her arms crossed while we walked to her side together. I could see Shiki laid out below us under a blanket of icy mist. Had they moved camp to secure this view?

At last, Lydia spoke. “You’re late.”

“I only just woke up.” I shrugged, and she told me what had happened outside with obvious displeasure.

“We put Yz out of his misery, and Alicia got away. She wasn’t really trying. She didn’t draw that black sword, for one thing. We got the gist of what happened in the archive from Anko. Did you get Aster?”

“I didn’t manage to finish him off.” The force of my tone startled Lydia and Stella. Their eyes urged me to elaborate. I looked down at my right hand and opened and closed it several times. “I drove Bright Night and Silver Bloom through his heart. A double would have shattered, and even the greatest sorcerer should have bled a little. But only one thing came out of Aster.”

I fished a shard out of my pocket. The noblewomen gasped.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“It’s just like North Star.”

“Yes,” I said. “I think it’s a Shiki flower orb. There were more of them embedded in the black gate. Aster’s was imbued with silver-snow.”

I had no definitive proof, and if I had reasoned correctly, the truth strained credulity. How could Aster Etherfield be an orb-powered automaton?

The wind rose. Stella held her hair, while Lydia ignored it.

“And this is what that hard fighting won us?” the Lady of the Sword asked, pointing cheerfully below.

A patch of mist cleared, revealing the central region where I took the Shiki archive to be—trapped under a thick azure glacier that certainly hadn’t been there before.

“W-Well...” I reeled.

“The sanctification process has begun, just like in every city we’ve visited.” Stella seized my right arm as though nothing could be more natural. “According to Lena, Bright Night resonated with the elementals to create a seal. Lia relayed her message. We’ve finished evacuating the local inhabitants.”

Lydia followed suit, wrapping her arms around my left and looking oddly unconcerned.

“I d-don’t see what else I could have done,” I countered, starting to regret coming here.

“No, neither do I,” said Lydia.

“We quite understand,” Stella added.

C-Come again? Aren’t they going to argue?

Seeing my bewilderment, the noblewomen revealed their trick.

“Anko says the northlands are supposed to be the black dragon’s territory. Only no one’s so much as laid eyes on it since it attacked the royal capital over that mess with the Eighth Dragon Creationists.”

“But someone needed to hold the sanctification in check. And who should volunteer but...”

“Anko, Kifune, and Rill?” I gasped, realizing too late the ingenious trap I had stumbled into. “D-Don’t tell me Alice and Lady Shise had a hand in this from the very—”

The Bibliophage’s tome, wrapped in chains of dark magic, slid into my coat. Mana from the flower orbs set in the black gate appeared in my pocket. Up in a tree, a majestic black cat meowed.

“Your prize. The signpost.”

No, not Anko too.

I groaned inwardly at the painstaking care with which my escape had been cut off. The noblewomen eyed me with satisfaction.

“You just vanquished the prime apostle, forestalled widespread sanctification in Shiki, and recovered one of the Bibliophage’s forbidden tomes along with a signpost to the final altar,” Lydia crowed.

“A fitting first exploit for Mr. Allen Alvern, I must say,” Stella added without a hint of shame.

S-Since when have these two been so friendly?! Someone, anyone, save me from—

“Hurry, Felicia!” came a cry. “My intuition tells me Mr. Allen is in danger!”

“T-Tina, please try to cal— Eek!”

“H-How dare you lean on me!” a little girl shouted, while two more let out cries of delight.

“Felicia, are you hurt?!” Stella raced to her dazed friend’s side. Tina and the children raised a cheer.

“Listen, Lydia,” I said softly, watching the peaceful scene unfold, “someone set me up to beat Aster, and that someone must have been—”

“I know. I know, but it’s fine. No matter what kind of monster we’re up against...” Her voice sank to the faintest of whispers. “She’s no match for the two of us together. Right?”

I nodded and slipped an arm around her slender shoulders.

✽

“C-Curse him, curse him, curse him. Blast that defective key,” I spat, panting, pressing my left hand to the gaping hole in my chest and leaning on my staff as I went.

Desolate fields of snow stretched out around me under a moonlit night sky. I could hear the occasional wolf howl. Setting my teleportation circle in the Yustinian hinterlands rather than within the kingdom’s borders had worked in my favor. Had I laid it too close, the Angel of Death and her minions would have harried my retreat.

But how could anyone—even I, Aster Etherfield, prime apostle and Sage—have foreseen that he was concealing the legendary lost sword of the Alverns? The blunder galls me more each time I think about it. What kind of grand duchess would entrust the symbol of her house to a mock beast? Has she no pride?!

I trembled with pure, righteous fury, then turned my mind to other matters. I had failed to take the Bibliophage’s tome, necessary to complete the great spell Resurrection, and I doubted that I could make use of the final altar in its present state. I would be forced to significantly revise my plan.

I withdrew my hand from the left side of my chest. Not a drop of blood flowed from the wound, nor had it left a stain. It leaked only fine flakes of ice and feeble mana escaping the damaged Shiki flower orb. Healing spells had no effect on my body—a nuisance, although I had resolved on it myself more than five centuries prior, so that I might live forever. In my original body, I, an Etherfield, would never have allowed a mere mock beast to—

A blade of death cleaved through the darkness toward me.

Impudence!

I ringed myself in shields of ice and stopped the invisible blade. Frozen “strings” crumbled, vanishing with the wind.

“What are you playing at, Alicia?” I demanded.

“What, can’t you tell?” The black-clad vampiress sneered at me from atop a boulder ahead, turning her eyes crimson.

So she wants to rebel, does she?!

I made up my mind to purge Alicia on the spot and activated the self-destruct spell I had etched into her heart. And yet...

“What is the meaning of this?” My voice faltered.

“I wonder. Whatever could it be?” The sneering, unaltered vampiress thrust her right hand forward and yanked it back. Amid a rising gale, her fingers closed on the Dark Lord’s black sword, Song of the Bygone Moon.

“I ask you again. What is—”

“I’m disposing of a puppet that’s outlived its usefulness, Aster,” said a person who could not—should not—have been there. Iria, the wolf-clan girl I had plucked from the gutter and made the Saint, emerged from behind the boulder. She wore her customary hooded white robe and the old earrings she claimed were a keepsake, but she had dropped her wards of misperception. And how had she teleported here without my noticing? Instincts I had half forgotten sounded the alarm.

“I am in no mood for your attempts at humor, Iria,” I said in glacial tones, weaving spells so that I could unleash a Falling Star at a moment’s notice. “I found you half dead in the royal capital, I gave you the strength to take revenge, and I raised you to the position you now hold. Do you honestly intend to kill me?”

“You’ve performed well, Aster,” she said. “Truly, you have. Ever since I met you in the waterways beneath the eastern capital. My plan would never have gone so smoothly without your and Io’s efforts.”

How differently we saw things. I had been advancing my grand design by using the sham “miracles” I’d had the girl perform to take in the Church of the Holy Spirit.

Iria raised her hood a touch and laughed, her golden eyes full of scorn. “Didn’t you ever find it strange? According to your plan, we should have been able to win in the eastern capital, the city of water, the royal capital, the city of craft, and the imperial capital as well. But while we have gained strategic victories, we’ve also suffered a string of tactical defeats. We’ve even lost apostles you planned to sacrifice on the final altar.”

She crooked a slender finger to underscore each point. How I longed to wring the shameless animal’s scrawny neck and have done with her. If only. I glared at Alicia, who held her black sword, crimson eyes blazing. The moon was out that night. Wounded as I was, mutual destruction seemed the best I could hope for.

“Do you know what a normal person would think?” Iria brought her hands together in undisguised glee. “They’d think, ‘My plan needs adjustments.’ But you never did. Or rather, you couldn’t. Tell me, why do you think that is?”

Sediment began piling up like snow within me.

Why? Why did I not seek victory more aggressively? Why did I not try to eliminate the defective key?

“The answer is simple.” The girl covered her mouth and snickered. “You were never a person with a will of your own. You’re a remnant from the age of gods that convinced itself it’s an Etherfield—the world’s last magical automaton, powered by a Shiki flower orb. It was such fun watching you modify Yz, false Sage.”

“Impossible,” I grated. “Do you imagine you can deceive me with such nonsense?”

I, an automaton? No. Never. It cannot be! I transplanted my own soul! Transplanted it to transcend eternity! I know the continent’s history back into the age of strife. Yes, I am human. But now that I examine the matter with a cool head, I must admit that there are gaps in my memory.

Iria pushed back her hood, exposing her animal ears, and made a formal bow. “Thank you for all you’ve done for me, fruitless experiment that the Etherfields left behind when they quietly died out five hundred years ago. Oh, and your memory was full of holes from the very beginning. Please believe me about that. Although, of course, your body is a knight’s and your memories are a sorcerer’s.”

“Y-You little wretch!” I lost all control and mercilessly activated Falling Star. At such close quarters, even Alicia, armed with the Dark Lord’s dark blade, would be hard-pressed to—

A little jade-green bird flitted across my vision.

I felt no pain. My world simply faded to black, and I fell in an undignified heap.

Have I been beheaded?! And that bird! That was the great elemental—

Vicious mana spread from Iria’s feet, a dragon’s roar cracked the snow-covered plain, and my Falling Star shattered to pieces. My consciousness faded, rapidly clouding.

Wh-Who... Who on earth...could have...?

Unfamiliar footfalls crunched toward me through the snow. The false Saint’s sincere prayer sounded inexplicably clear.

“Goodbye, Aster, poor fool. May your fleeting dreams be pleasant.”

✽

Afternoon found me at the café with the sky-blue roof in the royal capital, sighing. Having returned from the north by train just the other day, I now gazed out the window, teacup in hand, my reflection cast in the glass: Caren of the wolf clan in her school uniform, complete with beret. Most passersby wore winter coats. Some even had on scarves and gloves. The work to repair the damage from the apostles’ attack had mostly finished while I’d been abroad, and life in the royal capital was regaining its usual rhythms.

So why did I feel so drained? I wanted to consult the headmaster about the next student council and my new house name of Alvern, but I couldn’t get hold of him. And I’d had no word from Allen.

Maybe I should have stayed in the north instead of trying to act grown-up and responsible.

“You’ve done nothing but sigh for the past little while,” said the red-haired girl reviewing documents in the seat across from me. “Is something the matter?”

“It’s Lily,” I admitted.

“What about Lily?” Lynne pressed. “She’s seemed awfully busy with something since you returned to the city together.”

Ellie and I had been availing ourselves of Leinster hospitality and staying in the duke’s mansion lately, but we’d seen almost nothing of the scarlet-haired maid. So I had let my guard down. I had forgotten that sometimes, Lady Lily Leinster could assert herself even more forcefully than Lydia.

I rested a hand on my forehead and, in defiance of manners, planted my elbow on the table, propping up my head. “She came right up to me and said, ‘Won’t you please drop by the palace and tell His Royal Majesty all about the battle in the imperial capital?’ How is a beastfolk supposed to tell the king anything face-to— Oh!”

An electric jolt ran through me. My red-haired companion could make the difference.

“S-Say, Lynne, you’re Lily’s cousin. Do you think you could—”

“Stop her? I wouldn’t dream of it,” came the cheery reply, and my fleeting hope faded. The young noblewoman gave me an earnest look. “I’ve been thinking for some time how strange it is that you and my dear brother haven’t made more of a name for yourselves. I know Tina and Ellie would agree!”

“Th-Thank you, but I don’t—”

“Stop putting yourself down, Caren.” A woman’s voice interrupted my feeble objection. “No need to take after your brother on that front.”

Almost as one, we turned to the entrance and cried, “Chieftain Chise?!”

“Long time no see, and good to see you both alive and well. I arrived in the royal capital today, leading the charge.” Chise Glenbysidhe, chieftain of the demisprites, famed as the “Flower Sage,” removed her floral beret, revealing her light-orange hair, and took a seat. She cut an imposing figure in her green finery.

If she’s come to the royal capital, then the wait is nearly over at last.

“Caren ‘the Lightning Wolf’ of the eastern capital wolf clan. Lynne Leinster, ‘the Little Lady of Fire.’ Rejoice.”

I could feel my heart beating ever faster.

If only Allen were here for this!

“In the eastern capital, we gave the new Shooting Star our word that we would reforge a weapon for one of you and forge a new weapon for the other,” Chieftain Chise proclaimed solemnly. “Now the date is set, and the place is the royal capital! I take it the Great Tree roots and branches blocking the Sealed Archive are giving Ellie a hard time. Leave those to us too. We haven’t lived this long for nothing.”

She paused, then added, “Of course, it will nonetheless be heavy work.”

Afterword

Riku Nanano here. It’s been six whole months. A lot happened, and it ended up widening the gap between volumes. Forgive me. Please accept Felicia (is that Felicia?) on the cover and the Romy illustration I promised by way of apology.

I hope I can keep to the regular publication schedule this year. I...I’ll certainly try.

This novel is based on my ongoing serialized story on the web novel site Kakuyomu, with revisions. As long as even one word remains... (You know the rest.)

Now, on to the story. The battle for this volume’s cover was chaos from the get-go. First, I thought, “I guess it’s Lydia’s turn? But maybe if I add Lynne too...” Then it was “Should I avoid the obvious choices and make it Cheryl?” In the end, Felicia (if that is her) won out.

The color illustration of Tina and Allen reflects how much she’s changed and grown since they first met. The girl who needed to be led by the hand has come far enough to offer a helping hand of her own. I hope you can tell she’s maturing, slowly but steadily!

On the other hand, Felicia has the most firmly established position of all the leading ladies, and that tends to limit what she can do. I’m glad to see her stretch her wings again after so long.

Announcement time. The official website for the Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter anime is now online. I hope you’ll give it a look.

I’d like to thank all the people who helped me:

My editor. I know I caused you more headaches this volume, but I sincerely hope you’ll still help me through the next one.

The illustrator, cura. Another volume of amazing work! Thank you so much for the standing portrait of Romy.

And all of you who have read this far. I can’t thank you enough, and I look forward to seeing you again. Next volume—sisters in a recollection.

Riku Nanano