Chapter Two: Mother Arriveth

Carefully. Carreeefully.

Slowly and with utmost care, I picked up the eyeball. If I held it too tightly and it broke, that would get me nowhere. But at the same time, the slick surface meant it would slip away from me if I didn’t hold it tightly enough. Actually, I had already burst two of them by pinching too hard and had dropped another while trying to carry it, where of course it broke on the ground. When holding one, you had to work within a very small window of strength.

Holding my breath, I placed the eyeball atop the face.

It settled neatly, naturally, into the hole there—the eye socket.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Now the eye was in, but there was still a lot to do. There was no nose and no mouth yet, after all.

I laid those pre-cut objects atop the white face, once again being very careful. They weren’t as fragile as the eye, but they were still delicate pieces. I suddenly felt as if my hands would start shaking, and I struggled to make sure I was holding them not too tightly and not too loosely as I eased them onto the head.

“Ahh... Phew...”

It was actually starting to look like a person’s face. I was once again reminded, though, of how the human face is constructed on a set of subtle symmetries. The size of the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Their exact location. The relationship of the lines that make up the face. If any of these were even slightly off, it would look strange at best, or could even turn into an alien monster.

“Done...” I said at last, wiping the sweat from my forehead.

A girl’s face looked back at me, built from a collection of parts and with absolute dedication. A featureless white lump transformed into a face with eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and hair.

But then, a bright voice from beside me exclaimed, “Me, too!” I looked over.

Working next to me was Elvia-san.

Elvia Harneiman. She was a beast person—in other words, she had ears and a tail like an animal. When just standing quietly, she didn’t make much of an impression, but the moment she laughed or smiled, she became brilliant as a flower, a true display of innocence as beauty.

At the moment, her fluffy ears were flopping around happily. Apparently, she was more satisfied with her work than I was with mine.

“Whatcha think?” she asked me.

I looked at what she had done, and caught my breath.

I saw two complete young men. They were wearing disheveled clothes, and although they looked as elegant as girls, they were definitely boys. Packed proudly there in that little bentou box, they looked as if they might start moving, and even the skin showing from under their clothing looked real enough to touch. In fact, I thought I could practically hear them exchanging the words of their forbidden love.

That was some lunch.

We’d had the same ingredients and the same tools, so how in the world was this possible? I could only stare blankly at what Elvia-san had done.

“Man, that was hard work,” she said. “But I feel pretty good about how it turned out!” She smiled broadly.

“You... You should.”

As for me, I could only manage a vague nod as I looked back at the lunch box sitting in front of me.

It was supposed to be a “magical girl.” Madoka, the main character from the show Rental☆Madoka. I’d made her hair the right light-pink color and even gotten the ribbon she always wore in her hair. The big, round eyes were correct, too.

And yet, after looking at Elvia-san’s work, my own lunch box looked depressingly underwhelming. A girl? From the wrong angle, it looked more like a monster. I guess that’s the difference between real art and a child’s scribblings.

I couldn’t help feeling depressed. Could anyone but me look at this and recognize it as Madoka? Would they know it was a kyara-ben, a so-called “character lunch box”?

“.........Sigh...”

Even if I wasn’t feeling confident about it, it was too late to redo it now. I started cleaning up the scattered knives and spatulas in the kitchen, heaving a long breath.

I looked out the window, every bump the carriage ran over transmitted to me through my seat. The blue sky seemed to go on forever, and I could see groups of sprites weaving among the clouds. It looked like it was going to be another beautiful, pleasant day.

But...

“Shinichi-sama and Minori-sama are gonna be thrilled,” Elvia-san said with a grin from the seat across from me. On her knees she held the lunch she had just made, a kyara-ben—a lunch box that used ingredients to recreate a character from an anime or manga. The one I had made was sitting on my own lap.

We were currently riding by bird-drawn carriage to the school where my master, Shinichi-sama, and his bodyguard, Koganuma Minori-sama, were teaching. We were going to deliver the lunches to them. The one I had made was going to Shinichi-sama, while Elvia-san would give hers to Minori-sama. We had created different things, but we’d had the same ingredients, tools, and containers with which to do it...

“That lunch of yours, Elvia-san... It looks amazing,” I said honestly.

Elvia-san was an artist, so it only made sense that she would be good at art. But we weren’t using drawing supplies like she was used to; we were using kitchen tools like knives and spatulas, along with ingredients that varied in toughness and color. It wasn’t really the same process. That only made it all the more impressive that Elvia-san had managed to come up with such a masterpiece on her first try.

“I’m sure Minori-sama will be very happy,” I said.

“Y’ think so?” Elvia-san responded, laughing shyly and scratching her cheek. Her unabashed cheerfulness was almost blinding to me at that moment.

“Compared to yours, my own bentou is...”

I had never been the most gifted at fine motor skills, so while cooking was well and good, working with tiny ingredients wasn’t my strong suit. I’d heard that the professional chefs who served in big noble households could make vegetables look like animals or people, and even build castles and towers and other beautiful structures out of their ingredients... but I had never had the chance to learn those kinds of techniques.

Even so, I figured that since it was just another form of cooking, I might be able to make it work, and that was what had inspired me to try a kyara-ben like Shinichi-sama had told me about.

I’ve already described the result. With no time to redo it, I’d swallowed my pride and brought the lunch, but after seeing how Elvia-san’s came out, I couldn’t shake the impression that my own effort was pretty pitiful. I even wondered if I should really be giving such a poor thing to Shinichi-sama.

“I-It’ll be fine!” Elvia-san insisted. “Y-Yours will definitely taste better than mine, that’s for sure!”

“Appearance and aroma are also part of cooking,” I said sadly.

The human senses are remarkably fickle things. Two items can taste exactly the same, but if one of them is ugly and unpresentable and the other is plated beautifully, the latter will be perceived as tasting better.

“Er, okay, but these are character lunches. I mean, I’m doing art all the time, right? It’s sort of the same thing.”

I understood what Elvia-san was trying to say: artistic sensibility was key to a successful kyara-ben. For someone who could barely draw with a pencil on paper, trying to do art in a strange “medium”—specifically, food—wasn’t likely to turn out well.

And we had been using the exact same ingredients. I had actually started doing the character lunch on my own, but when Elvia-san happened to walk by and see me, she said it looked interesting and asked if she could try. And so we ended up making lunches together. She hadn’t prepared any of the ingredients, just assembled them.

There might be an issue with the specific combinations, but the basic flavors in both our lunches would be the same.

“I’m sure yours will taste better than mine!” Elvia-san insisted, clenching her fist. Maybe she was just being nice. She hemmed and hawed for a moment, perhaps looking for a good change of subject.

“Say, uh, Myusel—have you always been good at cooking?” she finally asked.

“No, not really... It’s just, when I was in the military, they charged me with making the rice, so...”

Military life was not all swinging swords and battling with magic. On longer marches, it became necessary to cook and to do laundry. And in most cases, rather than have the front-line soldiers attend to those tasks, it proved most convenient to have people who specialized in those roles. So, while I had certainly been taught a minimum of sword fighting and magic, the thing I learned the most about in the army was cooking.

“Even the slightest bit of care and time in preparing was enough to make everyone very happy...”

It should go without saying that the goal of food in the military is to make sure the soldiers have enough strength to fight. Therefore, quantity and nutritional value are paramount, with taste often becoming a secondary concern—but even a small amount of extra effort can change the flavor for the better. After a grueling day of training or fighting, to have everyone smile in surprise and ask, “Who made the food today?” made me very happy. Granted, my superiors usually took credit, but still...

I was smiling, but Elvia-san frowned. “I’m amazed you enjoy it so much,” she said. “Kyara-ben are great and all, but when it comes right down to it, I’m not much of a cook.”

“Maybe you’d like it if you tried it,” I said.

How long to cook something was, after all, a matter of experience. It wasn’t quite like a drawing, where you could see it coming together while you were working on it—but that made it all the more satisfying when the finished product had the flavor you were going for.

“I wonder,” Elvia-san said, crossing her arms. “I think maybe it’s just my blood.”

“Your... blood?”

“’Sright,” Elvia-san said with a broad gesture. “The blood—you know, the blood that runs through my veins, given to me by generations of my ancestors! This isn’t the blood of good cooks! My mom doesn’t cook, and neither do Big Sis Jiji or Big Sis Ama!”

“Uh-huh...” I remembered that Elvia-san was one of three siblings.

“I guess my dad was the best cook out of all of us, but was his stuff really, really good? I’d have to say... not really.” Elvia-san gazed into the distance. Maybe she was remembering the taste of her father’s cooking.

“I don’t think blood has much to do with it,” I offered. “Although they do say that eating delicious food from a young age gives you a more sensitive palate.”

Of course, maybe it was all relative. If you had to learn all about flavors when you were young in order to be a decent cook, then there was no way I should be able to make any kind of food. I felt like I hadn’t learned what good food really tasted like until I got into the military.

Just as I was thinking that, Elvia-san said, “So Myusel, you grew up eating some really delicious stuff, huh?”

“Oh... Uh, I’m not so sure about that.” I tried to put an ambiguous smile on my face.

“Were your mom and dad really good at cooking?” Now Elvia-san was leaning toward me, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it. That’s why I tried to respond in kind.

“I’m not sure. I guess I don’t really know.”

I watched the scenery go by the window as I answered. The sky was clear and seemed to go on forever. It was blue enough to suck me in and never let me go.

I wondered if those two people, my mother and father, were somewhere under this same sky. I had no idea where they were or what they might be doing.

“Huh? .........Oh.”

It was then that Elvia-san seemed to remember: I’m a half-elf, the offspring of an elf and a human. Come to think of it, her own country of Bahairam at least officially viewed everyone as equal under the king, so differences in the status of different races were ostensibly less pronounced than they were in Eldant. How would a half-breed like me have been treated if I’d been born in Bahairam? Would they still hate and harass me? Or...

“Uh, er, sorry, I—”

“It’s all right. It doesn’t bother me.” I shook my head. Maybe a little harder than I needed to, in the attempt to distance us from this subject. “Again, I don’t think your parents’ cooking ability has anything to do with it. I’m sure if you practiced, Elvia-san, you could learn to make perfectly delicious food.”

“Y— Y’ really think so?”

“You eat a lot, don’t you?”

“Heh... Well...” She scratched her cheek.

Elvia-san was the mansion’s resident “big eater”—what, with a little less tact, we might call a glutton. When she was completely focused on her art, she seemed perfectly happy to go without food, but perhaps as a result, when she did eat, she could easily manage three times what I ate.

“I think people who like to eat are ideal chefs,” I said.

“I wonder.”

“Do you think someone who hated to look at art could become an artist?”

“I guess I see what y’ mean.”

“If you know what people want from a meal, you’ll be able to do more for them.”

“Hey, I get it!”

It seemed I had at least succeeded in dispelling the unpleasant atmosphere for the moment. We talked about some basic flavorings for a few minutes, until the carriage arrived at the school.

After we delivered our character bentou to Shinichi-sama and Minori-sama, Elvia-san and I stayed at the school rather than going back home. We both wanted to study.

Presumptuous as it was, I sometimes played the part of a Ja-panese language teacher, so in order not to embarrass myself in front of the students, I took any chance I could get to read Ja-panese books. For her part, as Shinichi-sama’s resident artist, Elvia-san wanted to study Ja-panese-style “moe art,” and would look at art books and illustration collections every time we came to the school.

Of course, Shinichi-sama had the same or similar things on the bookshelves at home, but because these were for student use, many of them came with pamphlets containing Eldant translations, and sometimes even brief appreciations. Looking through these could give me an idea of alternate translations or ways of thinking about a book. There were so many things to learn from them, and I could also use them to judge the students’ level of comprehension.

But setting all that aside...

“Myusel.”

School was over, and Elvia-san and I were riding home with Minori-sama and Shinichi-sama in the bird-drawn carriage, which we had asked to wait for us. Shinichi-sama sat next to me, while across from us sat Minori-sama and Elvia-san.

“Thanks for the lunch,” Shinichi-sama said. “It was delicious—I mean, I know it always is, but still.”

“Thank you very much...” I felt my heart pounding at his characteristically kind words. Thinking back on how pathetic my own kyara-ben had looked next to Elvia-san’s, though, I felt more apologetic than happy.

“But I’m very sorry... I couldn’t make it as beautiful as Elvia-san’s...”

“So what? Even where we come from, making kyara-ben takes a lot of skill.” Shinichi-sama pulled out the “sumart fone” he always had with him. These devices were capable of instantly making extremely detailed pictures—apparently called “fotografs”—and now it was displaying an all too clear one of our lunches. I felt all the shame of it rushing back.

“Please, Shinichi-sama, it—it’s so embarrassing...!” I fussed.

Shinichi, though, shook his head and said, “There’s nothing embarrassing about it. I know how hard you must have worked on it. This picture will remind me how you gave me such a wonderful gift.”

“Oh... er, but... Thank you very much...”

That made me very happy, but... at the same time, I could tell he was choosing words that wouldn’t hurt me. Shinichi-sama was so very, very kind. He was so thoughtful, even toward someone like me.

“Say, Elvia.” The sudden turn of the conversation toward Elvia-san came from Minori-sama.

“Yeah?” She cocked her head.

“What was the story with that bentou?”

She was referring, of course, to Elvia-san’s kyara-ben. I might have expected Minori-sama to be thrilled with that lunch, but she was frowning as if she had eaten something bitter. Elvia-san didn’t seem to notice, though; in fact, she looked rather pleased with herself.

“Oh, that. Man, I worked hard to re-create that picture!”

“It was something, that’s for sure. I never expected to see the couple from Innocent Romance in my lunch! Especially not with that soft glow in their cheeks, like they’re really alive—wait, that’s not what I’m talking about!” She smacked her own knee audibly. “The meat was tasteless, practically raw; the veggies were chopped but nothing more; and I guess the stewed stuff was okay, but most of the sides hardly tasted like anything! So it looked great, sure, but actually eating it was a huge ordeal!”

It sounded like Minori-sama was saying that things with no flavor at all had gotten mixed up alongside things that tasted more or less normal.

“Huh? B-But I... When I tasted it, it seemed fine...”

Elvia-san shot little worried glances at me. She probably hadn’t expected this reaction. She probably wanted me to testify that she really had made the lunch in good faith.

“Uh... Um,” I said, raising my hand. “Minori-sama. May I?”

“Yes?”

“I suspect that the normal-tasting things you mentioned are the things I cooked, and which Elvia-san put into those shapes, whereas the things with no flavor are ingredients Elvia-san simply included wholesale.”

“Wholesale? Heck, even for a salad, you usually...”

“I apologize. I should have talked to Elvia-san about it.” I looked over at the beast girl as I spoke. “I hear werewolf taste buds are very discriminating.”

“Discriminating?”

“They can pick up the flavors of discrete ingredients, if you will. When I cook for Brooke-san, for instance, I often serve things that have barely even been heated, right?”

“Sure, now that you mention it,” Minori-sama nodded.

“Although not quite at the level of lizardmen, beast people have a different sense of taste than we do. A careless combination of flavors can actually be quite overwhelming for them.”

For example, some kinds of meats and vegetables became less stringent when cooked—but that stringency was also an important part of their flavor profile. Too strong, and it could become distracting, but none at all, and the food seemed lifeless. It was a tricky balance. And what seemed just right to a human or an elf could easily seem overpowering to a beast person.

“But doesn’t Elvia usually eat the same stuff as the rest of us?” Shinichi-sama asked, puzzled.

“The ingredients and basic appearance are the same,” I answered, “but I don’t cook Elvia-san’s food as thoroughly, and I use fewer flavorings.”

Heat could bring out the special qualities of a food, and also added flavor and even nutrients. But different races—especially ones with such distinct palates—could disagree about the perfect flavor, or the perfect combination.

“So you’re saying you make Elvia’s special, just for her?”

“It’s just a matter of setting some aside before I get to the cooking and seasoning step,” I said.

Don’t boil it too much, don’t overcook it, and don’t add too much extra flavor. I could simply set Elvia-san’s portion aside early during those stages. In the army, I had dealt with similar discrepancies in taste, so making those kinds of calls came naturally to me.

“You’ve been doing that all along? Wow,” Shinichi-sama said, his eyes wide. I didn’t think it was anything deserving of such praise, though, so I felt a little uncomfortable. I could tell my cheeks were turning red, and I shook my head.

“No, it’s... It’s just my job...”

“So basically, Elvia made my lunch based on her own taste perceptions,” Minori-sama said with a sigh. “At first I thought it was some kind of prank.”

“I’m very sorry,” I said, “it completely slipped my mind...”

I had been so caught up in making my own bentou presentable that it hadn’t even occurred to me to monitor what Elvia-san was doing with her flavors.

“I’m very, very sorry, Minori-sama,” Elvia-san said, bowing her head.

“Aw... No, I’m sorry,” Minori-sama replied, not sounding very convinced. “I didn’t realize... But anyway, I appreciate the thought. The effort you put into that kyara-ben definitely came through.”

“D-Did it?”

“All I’m asking is that next time you cook it a little more and add a little more seasoning.”

“Sure thing! I’ll have Myusel teach me!” Elvia-san looked up at Minori-sama, her tail wagging eagerly.

For better or for worse, Elvia-san’s facial expressions were never difficult to read; and the rest of her body likewise tended to make her emotional state clear. She also usually said exactly what she was thinking—honestly, I was a little jealous of that side of her.

I was gazing vacantly at Elvia-san’s wagging tail, these thoughts running through my mind, when Minori-sama leaned forward and looked out the little window between us and the driver’s bench. “Well, we’re here.”

The glance out the window was a nonchalant action on Minori-sama’s part, but it was actually something she did as Shinichi-sama’s bodyguard. She wanted to make sure there was no one suspicious near the mansion before we got out of the carriage. Minori-sama also carried a “fone,” and she sometimes used it to check on things, but in the end she wanted to make sure with her own eyes.

“Huh...?” Minori-sama made a sudden sound of surprise. Then she glanced at me from behind her glasses.

I looked back in perplexity.

“Myusel.”

“Yes?”

“Do you have any... sisters or anything?”

“Huh...?” Now it was my turn to blink in surprise. “I—I’m not sure what you mean.”

Halfway out of the carriage, Minori-sama was pointing. Shinichi-sama, Elvia-san, and I followed her.

And then we collectively stopped dead.

A woman was standing in front of the mansion. The first thing I noticed about her was her long flaxen hair. The next thing was her ears, which came to points...

“Wait. Are there... two Myusels?” Shinichi-sama said, but I couldn’t answer him. At the edges of my vision I could see my three companions glancing back and forth between me and the visitor, comparing us.

And why shouldn’t they? As Shinichi-sama said, the other woman looked very much like me. I could hardly blame Minori-sama for thinking she might be my sister. But...

“Myusel...” I saw the woman walking toward me. I had the uncanny sense that I was being approached by my own reflection in a mirror. “It’s been so long. Do you... know who I am?”

I didn’t say anything. Truthfully, I didn’t know.

It had been more than fifteen years since I had been separated from her. By the time I was aware of the world around me, she wasn’t part of it. So it was reasonable for her to ask if I recognized her. I doubted she actually knew my face, either. It was just that we looked so similar, who else could I be?

I was thinking the same way.

“Mother...” I whispered, and even I could hear the catch in my voice.

The atmosphere in the mansion’s parlor was fraught with tension. Or maybe it was as much me as the atmosphere that was tense.

“It’s been... such a long time,” said the woman on the other side of the table, smiling faintly.

She did look almost exactly like me, but unlike me, she was a full-blooded elf.

Falmelle Faugron.

My... mother, apparently.

Elves don’t age—or rather, they spend a very long time looking and feeling approximately the way one does from the late teens to the late twenties. So in addition to familial resemblance, you could say that over sixteen years of growing, I had caught up with my mother.

Truth be told, I had never imagined I looked so much like my mother. Ever since I had been nominally given as a foster child in my infancy, I had never had any sort of contact with my mother or her family. As the disgusting offspring of a union with a human, they pretended I didn’t exist.

But... Why now?

“Have you been well?” Falmelle-san asked.

“Yes...” I responded. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the face; I kept my eyes down as I spoke. Shinichi-sama and the others were standing behind Falmelle-san, watching the conversation develop. I could feel them looking at me. But I really and truly didn’t know how to answer, and instead lapsed into silence.

“Here you are.”

I was surprised to hear Minori-sama’s voice. I looked up to see her placing tea on the table for me and my mother.

“Oh...” I said.

“Thank you,” Falmelle-san said.

“Not at all,” Minori-sama said, returning her smile.

It would normally be my job to look after a guest that way. The thought was only just occurring to me, but an excess of nerves kept me from speaking.

Falmelle-san—whether or not she was aware of what I was thinking—brought the cup of tea to her lips and took a sip, a great smile spreading across her face.

“It’s delicious.”

I slowly, silently picked up my own cup and took a hesitant sip.

Come to think of it, I had never tried tea Minori-sama made. Just as my mother said, it was neither too thin nor too rich, but as relaxing as letting out a breath you’ve been holding too long.

“You two take your time,” Minori-sama said with a small bow—then she, Shinichi-sama, and everyone else left the room.

I followed Shinichi-sama with my eyes, anxious. I couldn’t help feeling like I was being abandoned. I fidgeted, uncomfortable with the silence that now filled the reception room.

“Come to think of it, I...” I half stood up as I spoke. “I think I have to bring in the laundry...”

“Surely that can wait a few minutes?” Falmelle-san said, frowning.

“W-Well, it’s my job...”

“And does it need to be done right this minute?” There was a bit of an edge in her voice. “And you can’t be the only one capable of bringing in the laundry, anyway. Let someone else do it.”

“But, I...”

She was right. Cerise-san was also a maid in this household. Even Brooke-san or Elvia-san could have brought in the wash. But...

“If it absolutely must be done, ask that girl who was just here,” said Falmelle-san. She must have meant Minori-sama.

Feeling unable to resist the command in her tone, I resettled myself on the sofa.

Falmelle-san watched me with a hint of a frown, but after a moment she said, “I’m glad you at least seem to be doing well.” Her face relaxed into a smile. “I know how it must seem, but I was worried about you. I gather you were in the army for a while? It was the right choice. This household seems a little... different. Are they treating you well? That boy earlier, was he the—”

“Faugron-san,” I interrupted. “Why are you here? And why now?”

I hadn’t seen Falmelle-san—my birth mother—for more than fifteen years. We had been separated so long ago that I didn’t even remember my parents’ faces. I didn’t know them. The only hint I had that Falmelle-san was my mother was her immense resemblance to me.

But she had never contacted me in my entire life. So why now, so suddenly...?

There was a moment’s silence before Falmelle-san let out a soft sigh. Then, wiping the smile off her face, she looked at me once more. She seemed to want me to understand that what she was about to say was important. I felt myself tensing involuntarily.

At length, Falmelle-san said, “I’ve come to get you.”

Then she smiled gently once again.

“Huh?” Whatever I had expected her to say, it wasn’t that. I sat there, blinking. “What do you... mean?”

“My father—your grandfather—has died of illness. That makes me free at last.”

I didn’t speak. What could I say? Obviously, I had no memories of my grandfather. So hearing that he had died didn’t really upset me.

“That’s the reason. That’s why I came for you, Myusel. I’m head of the Faugron family now. And I won’t let anyone speak ill of us.” She looked closely at my face. “All right?”

I still didn’t say anything. My mother wasn’t so different from my grandfather, in that I didn’t remember either of them.

Maybe I should have been happy that my mother had come for me. I knew that, intellectually. But my heart refused to follow my head. My only feeling was that a person I had no connection to was sitting here, saying things that had no bearing on me. And on top of that...

Shinichi-sama...

If I were to go “home” with Falmelle-san, who said she had come to get me, that would mean leaving my position as Shinichi-sama’s maid. Leaving this house. And that...

“Myusel?” Falmelle-san looked at me, puzzled by my silence. But I could only stare at my knees, at a loss for anything to say.

What am I going to do?

I was absolutely lost.

While I sat there in silence, Falmelle-san seemed to think things over for a moment, before she finally smiled and said, “Well, I guess it’s quite sudden.” She gave a small shrug. “You don’t need to hurry, really. Take your time getting used to the idea. I’m sure you’ll have to arrange a successor and such, too.” Apparently in her mind, there was no question. I would be going back with her.

From an outsider’s perspective, I had to admit that it might not seem like such a bad thing. And yet, I found myself sighing as I walked through the hallways of the mansion.

Falmelle-san seemed set on taking me back home with her—she had decided to spend a few days at the mansion, with no indication that she had any intention of returning home by herself. As it happened, there were a few vacant guest rooms in the mansion, so we would settle her in one of them.

And I still really, really didn’t know what to do. The Faugron family was based so far away from the capital that the trip took several days by carriage. The Faugrons were originally a merchant house, so they had established themselves near the country’s border, the easier to connect with other nations.

All of which meant that if I did go back to Falmelle-san’s house, it would take a great deal of time if I ever wanted to come back and visit this mansion.

To go. To go home.

I only knew the Faugron house by name; I just didn’t feel like “going home” was the right way to describe what I would be doing.

That’s what I was thinking about when I heard someone call my name.

“Myusel, whatcha doing?”

I came to a stop. I looked back, and there was Minori-sama.

“Don’t you need to get back? I mean, with your mother here and all.”

“Oh, no, I...”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I was running away from my “mother”—so I just trailed off.

“There’s... work to do around the house and everything,” I finally managed. I held up the folded sheets I was carrying to underline my point. One of my jobs was to change everyone’s sheets each day.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Minori-sama said, taking the bedding from me.

“Huh? Oh...”

“Seriously, don’t worry about your work. What else do you need to do?”

“Huh? Well, the laundry, and getting ready for dinner...”

“I’ll ask Elvia and Cerise to get the laundry. The three of us will handle dinner together.”

“B-But—”

“Your mom came all the way here. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.” Minori-sama was smiling.

Ahh... Minori-sama thought she was helping me. But as grateful as I was for her kindness...

“Okay, see you later.” Before I could stop her, Minori-sama left.

I stood there in the hallway with nothing to do. Just stood there.

Normally, Minori-sama was too busy as Shinichi-sama’s bodyguard to help out with housework—but she was a good person at heart, so when the need arose she marshaled Elvia-san and Cerise-san, and even pitched in herself. I was sure the cooking and cleaning really would get done. I heard Minori-sama had handled chores back when I was recuperating in the imperial hospital at the castle. Now she had Cerise-san, too, so I didn’t think she would want for helping hands. All of which meant...

“What’s up?”

“Huh?! Oh—” I turned at the sudden voice and found Shinichi-sama looking at me curiously.

“Uh, Shinichi-sama!” Without quite meaning to, I ran over to him. “How about some tea? Is there any work you need done?”

“Huh? What? What’s gotten into you...?”

“Anything! I’ll do anything!”

“Uh...” Shinichi-sama was looking at me, very surprised.

I could see why he might be a little startled, what with his maid suddenly asking him if there was any work to be done. But I really was desperate for even the smallest thing to occupy me. I wanted any excuse not to go back in that room with Falmelle-san—any proof at all that this household needed me.

“Uh... Okay,” Shinichi-sama said after a moment’s thought. “Could you make me some tea?”

“Yes! I’ll bring it to your room right away.”

I hurried off to the kitchen, feeling like his response had saved me.

I wheeled the cart with its tea supplies to Shinichi-sama’s room. I made it to my destination without seeing anyone on the way. I had been distinctly worried that I might run into someone who would tell me that they would take care of the tea, so I should go be with my mother.

“Shinichi-sama,” I said, knocking on the door.

“Come in,” he said.

“Thank you.” I entered the room and put a saucer and cup of tea on the desk where Shinichi-sama was working.

“Thanks.” He looked up and smiled at me.

I thought I was just looking at him normally, but he said, “Uh, is something the matter?”

“What?”

“It’s... kind of hard to drink when you’re staring at me so intently.” There was a wry smile on his face.

I panicked a little. “S—Sorry about that!”

Oops: Shinichi-sama was working. His “lap-top” was open on his desk. The proper thing for a servant to do after having served the tea would be to withdraw so as not to interfere with his work. Maybe, without realizing it, I had been standing around in hopes Shinichi-sama might ask me to do some other chore. While I was working, I could avoid thinking.

“Hey, Myusel...”

When Shinichi-sama spoke to me, I realized I had been staring at the ground. “Y-Yes?! What do you need? If there’s anything at all you want done, just—”

“No, this isn’t about a chore or whatever,” Shinichi-sama said, still smiling. “You and your mom look just like each other, huh.”

“Wha? Oh... Yes.”

“I thought maybe she was your twin sister. She’s... I mean, she’s the one who gave birth to you, right? But she looks almost the same age as you.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “Probably.”

“Probably?”

“I was given up for adoption immediately after I was born, so...”

“Oh...” Shinichi-sama put a hand to his mouth as if just making the connection. “Uh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s all right.” I shook my head, a bit of a smile playing across my face. “Elves... They don’t age the same way as humans.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s often said that elves don’t age, but really what happens is, once the body and mind are fully formed, the rate of change just becomes much slower.”

“Oh, huh! So the prime of their life is a lot longer. I’ve heard humans reach their physical peak from their twenties to their early thirties... It’s like that just goes on, huh? So, will that happen to you, Myusel?”

“No. I’m only half elf.” I shook my head. “I expect that after I reach about twenty years old, I won’t change as quickly as a full-blooded human. I don’t know exactly how it will work, myself. There aren’t that many half-elves around to tell me...”

In fact, many aborted half-elf children when they realized they were carrying such despised offspring, or “dealt” with them immediately upon birth. In that sense, perhaps one could say I was lucky.

“There might even come a time when I look older than Falmelle-san.”

Shinichi-sama was quiet for a moment. He blinked, looking me in the face as if for the first time. “Hmm. So...” He took a sip of tea. “Your mom is an elf.”

“Yes.”

“That means your dad must be...”

“That’s right. The human.”

“Huh. I see...”

He brought the cup to his lips again. The small sips, one after another, made me feel like there was something he wanted to say, something he felt he had to say, but which he couldn’t bring himself to express, and he was swallowing it with the tea.

For a while, Shinichi-sama didn’t speak. He took a sip, put the cup down—then picked it up again as if he had remembered something, and took another sip. Several times he did this.

But no matter how slowly one drinks a cup of tea, eventually it goes empty.

I picked up the teapot. “Would you like—”

“No, it’s okay,” he said, shaking his head. “Listen, Myusel.”

“Yes?”

“I... Let me say first, if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to, okay?” He was trying to be considerate of me. Then he started in on his question. “Myusel, your mom and dad...” He looked away from me, as if concerned. Maybe he was looking for just the right words. But I could more or less guess what he wanted to ask.

“Falmelle Faugron is the daughter of a merchant house,” I said. “I was given up for adoption before I had any memory of her, so I don’t know much more than that, but that’s what I was told.”

“So your grandpa was a merchant?”

“Yes. It seems the family did relatively well for itself. Falmelle-san is a prophet, so ever since she herself was small, her powers have helped the family succeed in their business ventures.”

“A prophet... You mean like, someone who tells the future?”

“Yes. There are some people with powers like that.”

“Wow...”

“It’s not precisely a well-defined magic, so I gather there are some substantial limitations to it, but still.”

Elves had a natural aptitude for magic. If a human and an elf used the same spell, the elf’s magic would be more accurate, able to be used more times, and would have a variety of other advantages. However, it was humans who systematized magic and organized it into a skill that could be learned. Elf magic is more the natural expression of magical power, with each individual having different magicks based on their life experiences.

Thus, some spells appeared naturally among the elves, even when no one had gone out of their way to learn them. They were often, I had heard, unusual abilities not available to other people. Falmelle-san’s gift of prophecy was a classic example.

My understanding was that she was only able to offer the most enigmatic descriptions, but even so, her ability was highly valued in the work of the Faugron family.

“Not many elves have succeeded at business, but the Faugron household became an exception. They even became frequent visitors at the houses of human nobles and important human merchants. And that’s how Falmelle-san... my mother... met my father.”

“So that’s the story...”

“But... I guess my father wasn’t a very good person...”

I didn’t even know his name. The people who adopted me certainly hadn’t told me—but even Falmelle-san herself hadn’t mentioned it.

“Apparently my father leaned heavily on my mother for money, such that it even began to affect the family business.”

“He really took that much?” Shinichi-sama blinked in surprise. “He was a bit of a no-goodnik, huh...”

“‘No-goodnik’?”

“Oh, uh, it means a guy who’s not worth much.”

“I see. Maybe that describes him.” I sighed and nodded.

The care with which his identity had been concealed might mean he was someone of such high status that there would be a general outcry if it was discovered he had been with an elf woman. Or otherwise, it meant there was something shameful about the man himself.

I couldn’t help but suspect that with my father, it was the latter.

“At the time, it was my grandfather—Falmelle-san’s father—who was head of the family, and he was immensely angry. He forced the two of them to separate. Because Falmelle-san’s prophecies were so crucial to his business, he would never kick her out, but instead he imprisoned her.”

“Imprisoned?”

“He kept her in the house, and hardly ever let her go outside.”

“Ahh...” Shinichi-sama scratched his cheek; it almost looked like he was smiling. “It’s one thing to shut yourself up in your house. But to have it forced on you... That must be terrible.”

“I think so, too,” I said, nodding.

In fact, I had been kept in near imprisonment in my own adoptive home on the grounds that it “wouldn’t look good” for me to be seen. Unable to stand it, I had run away from that house and ended up living like an orphan on the streets. But even then, I simply couldn’t imagine going back.

“After they found out Falmelle-san was with child, they debated whether or not to end the pregnancy. Ultimately, they thought maybe her child might have prophetic powers like its mother, so they decided to wait and see... But even as a baby, I showed no sign of such gifts.”

I understood that Falmelle-san had considerably more magical ability even than most elves, but as for me, my magic powers were closer to those of a human, and it was decided that I was unlikely to develop prophecy or any other unique gifts.

“And so I was given up.”

“Jeez, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard!” There was an uncharacteristic stiffness in Shinichi-sama’s expression. “Didn’t they care at all about their grandchild?”

“Shinichi-sama...”

“Is the whole family obsessed with what will or won’t help them in their business?” He seemed genuinely agitated.

It surprised me. These were all things that were over and done with long ago. They didn’t have anything to do with him. And yet he seemed so involved...

“They just didn’t have any choice,” I said.

“Didn’t have any choice?”

“It’s bad enough for an elf to be with a human. If people knew that a child had come of it... It would be more than bad for business. The whole Faugron family might collapse. Many humans of the Holy Eldant Empire aren’t very open to the idea of elves trying to expand their business...”

“Oh...” Shinichi-sama’s eyes widened with a flash of understanding. “So you could even use that as an excuse...”

“An excuse? Use what?” I looked at him, not understanding.

“I don’t know your grandpa, Myusel, and I guess it’s possible he was just a really terrible guy.” Shinichi-sama crossed his arms as he spoke. “But is it possible he used the excuse ‘she might prove useful’ to prevent his grandchild from being killed before she was born?”

I caught my breath, amazed. The thought had never so much as occurred to me. But now that Shinichi-sama said it, I saw that of course, it was a possibility. Although now that Falmelle-san’s father, my grandfather, was dead, there was no way to be sure...

“If his business was really all that big, then I’m sure he had lots of staff members, people whose livelihoods and families depended on him. In that case, maybe sending you away was the least awful thing he could do.”

“Maybe...”

Naturally, everything Shinichi-sama was saying was speculative. It was always possible that none of it was true, that my grandfather had simply foisted an inconvenient child on someone else. That was what I had always believed, and I really had no way of knowing what the truth was. But still...

“I mean, maybe it’s just me,” Shinichi-sama said with an uneasy grin. “I have a bad habit of looking for the best in people. Now your grandpa’s gone, right? And we can’t turn back time. Maybe it would make your life just a little happier to believe something better about him instead of something worse.”

I didn’t speak, but I could feel heat rushing to my head. Ahh, sweet Shinichi-sama, he’s so—

“Shinichi-sama. I—I don’t resent the fact that I was given up for adoption.”

“No?”

“It’s part of what led me to working here at this mansion.”

Part of what led me to serving at your side. My dear Shinichi-sama.

In my mind, the happiness I felt now more than made up for whatever I had suffered arriving at it.

“Myusel...” Shinichi-sama blinked in surprise. Finally he said, “I see. I’m glad you feel that way.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, smiling.

But then Shinichi-sama, also smiling, added, “Plus, now you get to live with your mom, huh?”

“Wha...?” I felt my expression freeze.

“Your mother. She must have come for you, right?” He was still smiling.

It was a happy thing that Falmelle-san had come to bring me home. It should be happy. I knew in my mind that I should be overjoyed. Why shouldn’t Shinichi-sama smile for me?

But at that moment, I couldn’t for the life of me feel happy.

If this had all happened before I had started working at this mansion.

Before I had started serving Shinichi-sama.

Then, maybe I could have been happy, like I was supposed to be.

“Yes... Yes, she did...”

“That’s great.”

I didn’t say anything. I felt like he was talking me into a need to be happy, and it left me deeply anxious.

Living with Falmelle-san would mean leaving this house. It would mean I couldn’t live with Minori-sama and Brooke-san and Cerise-san and Elvia-san, and above all, with Shinichi-sama.

True, I might still be able to see them again, sometime. But...

“But if you go with her...” Now Shinichi-sama turned to his desk, as if deliberately putting his back to me. I could see him playing with the empty teacup. “I guess we’ll have to ask Petralka to hire a new maid for us, huh?”

I still didn’t speak. Was he... saying they didn’t need me anymore?

I felt a sharp pain deep in my chest. I knew well enough that there was nothing about me that made me irreplaceable. I wasn’t a warrior like Minori-sama or Brooke-san. I couldn’t do art like Elvia-san. What did I do? Cook and make tea and do laundry—but as the kyara-ben and the cup of tea in the parlor proved, none of this was anything Minori-sama, Elvia-san or Cerise-san couldn’t handle.

Maybe they would even be able to hire a better maid than me.

In short, there was no reason at all that I absolutely had to be here. No reason I had to be the one serving Shinichi-sama.

I started to feel dizzy as I absorbed the fact. But I couldn’t say anything to Shinichi-sama about it; I just stood there staring at his back.

The next day, I was to appear at the castle with Shinichi-sama. In other words, I was to attend an audience with Petralka an Eldant III, the empress.

There were a number of audience rooms at Eldant Castle, of which we were shown into the very smallest. Even so, it was bigger than any room in our mansion, and it had a unique atmosphere that always made me a little uneasy. Normally, someone like me would never get anywhere near the empress.

“..........And that’s the story.”

Altogether, four of us were shown into the audience chamber. Shinichi-sama, Minori-sama, myself—and Falmelle-san. Since the subject of a replacement maid for me was expected to come up at this audience, I had been brought along. And Falmelle-san, insisting she wanted to pay her respects to the empress, attached herself as well.

Just a visit with the empress would raise her stature as a merchant in the Holy Eldant Empire, so she didn’t want to miss this opportunity—or so I suspected. Falmelle-san may have spent her life imprisoned, but she had certainly absorbed the commercial know-how of the Faugron family.

Shinichi-sama explained the broad contours of the situation before concluding, “So we’re going to need a new maid... Is that all right?”

“Will you indeed,” the empress mused from her throne. Her Majesty held the imposing title of Empress of the Holy Eldant Empire, but in fact she was impossibly cute. She had luxurious, beautiful silver hair and round eyes as green as emeralds; she looked like the delicate work of a master doll maker. Her Majesty, however, seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the fact that this made her look a bit young—she seemed to be concerned that it would undermine her authority—and she would not be very pleased to hear anyone actually pronounce her “cute.”

“So you are Myusel’s mother.”

Her Majesty looked past Shinichi-sama to where Falmelle-san and I were standing behind him. I felt myself straighten up, but Falmelle-san somehow seemed even calmer under the imperial gaze.

“The resemblance is apparent. We might have taken you for sisters.” The empress sounded intrigued.

Falmelle-san offered an elegant bow in return. “My father told me she looked exactly as I did when I was an infant. Thus some expectation attended her, but sadly it seems my daughter has not inherited any of my powers.”

“Powers, you say?” Her Majesty leaned forward, her interest apparently piqued by Falmelle-san’s pregnant hint.

“Oh, nothing very remarkable. Sometimes it is called ‘The Foreseeing Eye.’ It’s terribly vague, never showing me any details—but once in a while, images of the future are revealed to my sight.”

“My goodness...” The empress’s eyes widened. “The power of prophecy? We have heard tell of it, but...”

“Apparently it’s helped business go very well for her family,” Shinichi-sama added.

“We do have some magic-users who tell fortunes here at the castle,” Her Majesty reflected. “But besides being most imprecise, these fortune-tellers claim that to see the future is to change the future, or some such thing. If your power is indeed what you say, it could be of great use to our nation in everything from governance to war. We could wish you were one of our retainers.”

“It is a tremendous honor,” Falmelle-san said with another bow—but then she shook her head. “As it happens... I cannot simply peer into the future any time I please. When and what I see is beyond my control. But even the faintest glimpses can often be useful in commerce.”

“Commerce...” Her Majesty glanced at Shinichi-sama before saying, “That’s right—we haven’t asked your name. What are you called?”

“Your Majesty. My name is Falmelle Faugron.”

“Hm?” The empress raised an eyebrow. She thought for a moment before exclaiming, “You mean of the Faugron house?!”

“The very same.”

“You know them?” Shinichi-sama asked in surprise.

“We know the name. Permission to trade for concerns above a specific size is issued in our name, and we are sure the name Faugron was among those we approved. We remembered it because it’s so unusual for elves to become such successful merchants. The house even came up when considering companies that could assist in the export of otaku goods.”

“Huh!” Shinichi-sama looked back at me and Falmelle-san, impressed.

“But what a very strange coincidence. Who would have guessed that Myusel was a daughter of the Faugron house...”

The fact was, I myself still didn’t know that much about the household; all I really knew was what Falmelle-san had told me.

“In any event, it is certainly well that mother and daughter should live together,” Her Majesty said earnestly. That was when I remembered—the empress had lost her own parents when she was young.

“We are convinced,” she went on. “Shinichi, you may entrust us with finding you a new maid.”

“Thanks, Petralka,” Shinichi-sama said with a smile.

Minori-sama smiled, too, as did Her Majesty—and Falmelle-san. No one expressed any objection to getting a new maid.

Nobody tried to stop this.

I tried to push aside the pain that caused me as I stood staring at the ground.

However great and powerful the empress might be, even she couldn’t get a new maid the very same day she was asked to do so. Thus, until someone new could be found, I would continue to work at the mansion as I had before. Minori-sama, Cerise-san, and Elvia-san all wanted to help out, but the fact was that when I was with Falmelle-san, I could never quite calm down.

It wasn’t that I hated her or something. I just...

“Sigh...” I found myself letting out a long breath as I did the wash. It was perfect laundry weather, not a cloud in the clear, blue sky. But my heart was a leaden grey. Even my body felt unusually heavy.

I hadn’t slept a wink since the audience the other day. Maybe that accounted for why I had to drag myself around. Every time I tried to sleep, my mind filled up with the image of this house without me in it. Someone, some stranger, standing beside Shinichi-sama as he smiled and drank his tea. Standing there like it was the most natural thing in the world... Just thinking about it was enough to put me into a depression.

And so, in order to avoid thinking as much as I could, I spent sleepless nights cleaning the house. When I was working, when my body was moving, was the one time I could keep the awful thoughts at bay.

“Sigh...”

I sighed for the umpteenth time as I fished the clothes out of the laundry hamper and dunked them in a bucket of water. In my head, I frequently went over the steps. Separate the clothes into two or three loads and wash them...

“Oh...”

I stopped in the middle of putting the clothes in the bucket.

I was holding one of Shinichi-sama’s shirts.

When the new maid came, she would wash Shinichi-sama’s shirts instead. It could be as soon as tomorrow. And then this would be the last time I ever did Shinichi-sama’s laundry...

The thought made my chest ache. I hugged the familiar shirt tightly. Shinichi-sama’s smell clung faintly to it.

Gripped by an intense sadness, I buried my face in the shirt—

“Myusel.”

I jumped, the unexpected sound of Falmelle-san’s voice bringing me back to my senses. I turned around to see her walking toward me, and quickly dropped Shinichi-sama’s shirt in the bucket of water.

How long had Falmelle-san been there? Had she noticed me hugging Shinichi-sama’s laundry?

She stopped right in front of me, then looked at the bucket. I saw her eyes narrow slightly. Shinichi-sama’s shirt was still floating at the top of it, absorbing water.

Her expression flickered as if she wanted to say something. “Myusel, you...”

Her eyes on me burned; I turned my face away as if hoping to flee. There I had been, hugging Shinichi-sama’s shirt, sniffing it. What a base and unrefined daughter I was. I squeezed my eyes shut, shame tinting my face red, and braced myself for the words I was sure were coming.

But I didn’t hear them. Only silence. No matter how long I waited, Falmelle-san didn’t say anything.

Finally, I slowly opened my eyes and looked up.

Falmelle-san was looking down at me with an expression that was difficult to describe. She wasn’t angry. Nor frustrated or annoyed. Nor sad. She wasn’t even happy. And yet it could have been any of those things.

At length she murmured only, “Well, never mind.” Then she turned and walked away from me.

What was it she had wanted...?

I watched her go before I finally collected myself enough to finish the laundry.

If only they never find another maid...

The thought came to me sometimes when I was especially depressed. But of course, it was in vain—eventually we received word that someone new had been found. They would arrive at the mansion within the next few days.

It would take the newcomer some time to get accustomed to how things were done at our house, so Minori-sama, Elvia-san, Cerise-san, and even Brooke-san would take over some of the work I had been doing until the new maid was settled in.

“Uh... About meals,” I said, looking around at Minori-sama and the others, who had joined me in the kitchen. “Elvia-san generally prefers less intense flavors and about one-third the seasonings I use in Shinichi-sama’s food. How much to cook it is really a matter of feel. If you’re going to grill something, a light scorching will do. If you’re boiling something, make sure to take it off the heat before the flavor gets too stringent. For Brooke-san and Cerise-san, I mostly try to leave the ingredients alone as much as possible—but when it comes to fruits in particular, it has to be something ripe, just about to spoil. Shinichi-sama and Minori-sama get roughly the same things, but be careful when you’re serving mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms?” Minori-sama repeated.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Shinichi-sama doesn’t really like mushrooms.”

“Izzat right?” Elvia-san said. “I didn’t know that.”

“He’s never told me so specifically, but he always leaves his mushroom dishes until the very end. And then it takes him a moment or two before he starts eating them. He doesn’t chew them very thoroughly, which I think is bad for his digestion. So please try to avoid serving mushrooms as a main course, or chop them finely and include them in something else.”

Minori-sama and Elvia-san looked at each other dubiously. Had I said something wrong...?

Even while part of me wondered about it, I moved on to the next thing. “Now, about the laundry.”

“Right,” Cerise-san nodded. It wouldn’t do to have someone with such a different sense of taste in the kitchen, so in addition to her usual chores, I asked her to take over the washing.

“Shinichi-sama likes the color green. He’ll always wear his favorite clothes as long as they’re washed, so if you see anything green in the laundry, please start with that. And then... Oh, yes. About the cleaning.”

I was always responsible for cleaning Shinichi-sama’s room, so there were some pointers I had to give them about that. “When it comes to Shinichi-sama’s room, be sure to check it thoroughly, especially around the wastebasket. Shinichi-sama has an unfortunate habit of not getting up to throw trash away. If he happens to reach the wastebasket with a toss from his chair, well and good, but if he misses, trash can end up piled by the wall. It can also hide in the shadows of the bookshelves and other hard-to-see places, so be careful...”

And on and on.

Was there anything else I needed to tell them? I looked down, counting on my fingers, numbering off the important details. That was when I felt several gazes upon me.

Minori-sama. Elvia-san. Cerise-san. Brooke-san. All of them were watching me intently.

I could never tell from their faces what Cerise-san and Brooke-san were thinking, but Minori-sama’s and Elvia-san’s expressions, I could read.

Were they... exasperated? But why?

“Um... Is something the matter?”

“Myusel,” Elvia-san started. “You’ve talked about nothin’ but Shinichi-sama this entire time.”

“Wha...?”

It took me a second to process what she meant. I had just been explaining the jobs I did in this mansion.

I paused, reviewing in my mind what I had talked about. Shinichi-sama’s food. Shinichi-sama’s clothes. Shinichi-sama’s room. Shinichi-sama’s—

“O-Oh... W-Well, I...” I felt my cheeks growing hot. “I didn’t mean to...”

But Shinichi-sama was the master of this house, so why wouldn’t I have a great deal to say about him? It was crucial to know how to make one’s master happiest...

The words started to run together in my head. The more I thought about them, the more they felt like an excuse. I found myself unable to speak. I looked down at where my hands rested on my knees, wishing that no one could see me looking like this.

For a while, nobody spoke, an unnatural silence settling over the kitchen.

Finally, Minori-sama broke the quiet. “Anyway, I’ll handle the food. I’m probably the one with the best chance of making something Shinichi-kun will like. I’m not exactly a great cook, but I can manage the basics.”

She sounded cheerful—maybe it was just a nasty suspicion in me that made it sound forced.

I looked up to see Cerise-san nodding. “Let Brooke and me do the cleaning.” She looked at her husband, who looked back and nodded.

Lizardman faces are different in shape and even texture from our own, sometimes rendering them almost impossible to understand, but there was also a small number of gestures that were perfectly comprehensible. The fact that Brooke-san and Cerise-san worked well together was evident from how few words they had to speak.

To me, at that moment, the two of them looked like impossibly bright lights...

“And I’ve got th’ laundry!” Elvia-san declared, raising her right hand enthusiastically. She rose halfway out of her seat, her tail wagging happily. “I’ll do Shinichi-sama’s green stuff first, just like you said! I get to sniff the clothes while I’m doing the wash, right?”

“There’s all kinds of things wrong with that,” Minori-sama said with a bit of a frown.

“Er, I—I was just jokin’!” Elvia-san insisted, but I found I couldn’t laugh.

“It sure didn’t sound like a joke the way you said it.”

“What? Minori-sama, you’re the worst!” Elvia-san put up her hands defensively.

They all seemed to be having such a nice time together. It looked like fun. If nothing else, it seemed like none of them felt they would be missing anything when I left the mansion.

And that, too, made me terribly sad.

Nobody said “Don’t go.”

Of course, I was painfully aware that they were all pleased that I would finally be able to live with my mother, whom I hadn’t seen in so long. And I was happy that Falmelle-san had been thoughtful enough to come get me.

But... even so... couldn’t one of them have at least tried to stop me? Maybe in some corner of my heart, I had been hoping they would.

My vision got a little blurry. No, don’t cry. I knew I shouldn’t, couldn’t, but it was out of my control.

“Myusel? What’s wrong?” Minori-sama asked in surprise. Maybe she had noticed.

“Nothing...” I said, quickly using my sleeve to wipe away the tears that threatened to spill over. Somehow I managed to force a smile onto my face. It was a near thing, but it seemed to work.

“Don’t worry so much, Myusel, it’s gonna be fine!” Elvia-san said, leaning across the table. “Even I can handle some laundry! I’m tellin’ you, it’ll be okay!”

“Yes,” I said, still smiling that empty smile. “I’m sure it will.” All I could do was nod along.

I still had hardly slept by the time the day came for me to leave the house.

The new maid, I was told, would be coming the next day, a sort of changing of the guard.

I never had much in the way of personal belongings, so all my luggage, including my changes of clothing, fit in a somewhat large bag. The battle dress I had received from Her Majesty when I went to Bahairam I had decided to launder and respectfully return. I had needed it because I was serving at Shinichi-sama’s side, to protect him. Now that I was leaving him, I wouldn’t need it anymore.

The last thing I packed into my bag was the scrap on which Shinichi-sama had written the “fifty sounds” for me. Once I had packed it away, I let out a breath. I had changed into a one-piece dress for traveling; my maid uniform was folded neatly on the bed.

The maid uniform I had been given when I first arrived at this house. I would never wear it again.

I stood and stared at the outfit I had become so accustomed to wearing...

“Myusel, aren’t you ready yet?” Falmelle-san called from the hallway.

I shuddered. Falmelle-san, who of course couldn’t see me, continued to exhort me to hurry up.

“We’re going, come on.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am,” I answered to buy myself some time. I could hear how weak and thin my voice sounded.

I stood a moment longer in silence, but just standing there wouldn’t change anything.

I shifted, just about to leave... But then I took one last look.

Knowing this would be the last time, I reached out, touched the uniform lying on the bed.

I had almost forgotten how impossibly happy Shinichi-sama had been the first time he saw me wearing this...

I couldn’t take my hand away. The thought froze my fingers to the uniform with an immense longing, and I couldn’t let go.

“Myusel!”

Falmelle-san’s voice came again from outside.

The bird-drawn carriage was already waiting for us. It wasn’t the kind we normally used to get to school or the castle. The carriage itself was larger, so riders could be comfortable over journeys of several days, and the wheels were bigger too, since we would be traveling over rougher ground.

And there was Falmelle-san, standing beside the carriage.

Shinichi-sama, Minori-sama, Elvia-san, Brooke-san, and Cerise-san were all there too, almost surrounding her. They had all come to see me and my mother off.

Silently, I came through the front door and headed over to them.

“Oh, Myu...sel?”

Shinichi-sama was the first one to notice me, but as he turned, his eyes widened with surprise. One by one, the others turned, too. Each of them looked startled.

“Myusel.” This time it was Falmelle-san’s turn to speak, her voice laced with annoyance. “Are you still wearing that?”

I stood in front of the house, in front of them all—not in my dress, but in my maid uniform, the one I wore for working in this house. It felt far more familiar and comfortable on me than the dress.

“Hurry up and change,” my mother said. “Everyone’s waiting here for you, you can’t—”

“Falmelle-san,” I said.

Briefly, I looked down at the ground. I licked lips that had gone dry with nervousness. I took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm a heart pounding so loud I could hear it. And then I clenched my fists, scolding myself for being too timid, and looked up.

“I...”

I looked straight at Falmelle-san—at my mother. To my surprise, her expression was reserved and quiet. She didn’t look shocked, or angry. If anything, it was an expression of calm resignation.

“I... don’t want to go...!” My voice shook as I squeezed the words out. The words I had been unable to speak until this very moment.

The instant I said them, the tears poured forth, like a dam had broken. I couldn’t stop the sobs from grabbing my throat. I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t stop the gasping and weeping.

“Myusel...” I could see Shinichi-sama and the others, all looking troubled by this sudden spate of tears.

There’s no doubt I was upsetting things by saying this so suddenly. They had already settled on a new maid, after all, and we had even told Her Majesty that I was leaving.

But I couldn’t hide it any longer, from them or from myself. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay with them... With Shinichi-sama.

And so...

“I...”

I opened my mouth almost involuntarily, not sure myself what I wanted to say. Somehow, though, I was desperate to communicate to them how much I wanted to stay.

My emotions got the better of me, and I could hardly form words. I just stood there with my mouth working open and shut, groaning.

It was at that moment that my vision... tilted.

How strange. The world wasn’t normally so sideways.

No... It wasn’t the world that had moved.

“Oh.........”

I found my sight going dark.

I heard Shinichi-sama shout, “Myusel!”

It was the last thing that reached my ears before I lost consciousness.

The first thing I saw when I came to was a white ceiling. It was the familiar ceiling of my own room.

I was in my own bed—a fact it took me a few minutes to assimilate. I was light-headed and my eyelids felt heavy. Just keeping my eyes open was a struggle; they kept trying to drift shut again.

What had happened to me? I couldn’t quite think straight; it felt like my brain was numb. My body was heavy, like it was trapped in mud. I could hardly move a single finger.

Maybe it was because I hadn’t slept for so long.

I fought to sit up, but I felt vague and diffident, as if I were floating in water—as if my heart might melt and flow away despite my attempts to hold onto it.

As I wrestled with these sensations, I heard a familiar voice. Shinichi-sama’s voice.

“Um... Are you sure she can’t stay here?”

“Why would she?” The reply came from Falmelle-san.

Both of them sounded quite close, probably in the same room with me. And yet with my benumbed senses, the conversation itself seemed distant, unreal. I was just listening passively.

“Well...”

“I’m her mother, and I’ve decided to take her home. What are you saying, that you won’t let me?”

“No, ma’am... It’s just, Myusel said she didn’t want to go...”

“A child’s logic.” Falmelle-san gave a bit of a sigh. “But it has nothing to do with you anyway. Am I wrong?”

“Nothing to do with me—?”

“Or do you also suppose it would be best for Myusel not to go with me? Do you suggest that a parent who has once given up her child has no right to reclaim her?”

“No—”

“Then what is your reason for telling me not to take my daughter home?”

Shinichi-sama didn’t answer. I could all but feel him flinching under Falmelle-san’s withering tone.

“Or,” said my mother, “do you speak without any reason at all?”

“No, I don’t,” Shinichi-sama said. “I mean, I agree that being with your mother is better for sure... But...”

He stopped talking. Silence pervaded the room. Falmelle-san didn’t try to rush an answer from him, but waited without a word.

Finally, Shinichi-sama concluded, “I’m... the same.”

“The same?”

“I don’t want Myusel to go, either. I want her to be here.”

Ahh!

Of course, it would be Shinichi-sama who was kind enough to speak those words. If I hadn’t been feeling so groggy, I would have burst into tears again right then and there.

Falmelle-san, however, heaved a sigh. “Oh, for...”

Her sigh, though, wasn’t one of annoyance or even surrender. Was it just my imagination, or did she sound secretly pleased?

“I guess that girl is my daughter,” Falmelle-san murmured. From her voice, I guessed—just guessed—that there was a small smile on her face.

“What do you mean?” Shinichi-sama asked.

“Hmm? What indeed?” Falmelle-san replied, dodging the question.

I think their conversation continued after that, but my mind had finally grown too clouded to continue picking out individual words.

Shinichi-sama...

I slipped back into the depths of sleep.

When at last I opened my sleep-deprived eyes once more, it was all over. Shinichi-sama, I gathered, had reported to Her Majesty that I was to stay at the mansion. Even Minori-sama, who was normally silent during royal audiences, had told Her Majesty on behalf of everyone in the household that it would be better if I stayed.

Finally, there was the matter of Falmelle-san.

“If you hate me enough to burst into tears about it, I guess I really have no choice but to leave you be.” She shrugged.

“It’s... It’s not that I hate you...”

I really didn’t hate Falmelle-san. I just—

“Thank you for your hospitality.” To the bitter end, Falmelle-san didn’t really listen to me—she bowed to Shinichi-sama and the others instead. “Please look after Myusel for me.”

She said she had to be getting back to oversee the Faugron business. Apparently, it had been all she could do to find ten consecutive days to spend in the capital. And with that, we found ourselves standing outside the house, seeing her off.

“Hardly,” Shinichi-sama said. “She’s the one who takes care of us...”

“Oh, that’s just her job,” Falmelle-san said pointedly. For someone who believed her daughter hated her, she looked awfully cheerful. Then she turned to me. “Myusel.”

“Oh... Um...” I took a step forward. “I’m sorry...”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go home with her, or that I didn’t want to be with her. I understood how awful I must look, chasing out my own mother when she had come specifically to get me. I knew a few words of apology wouldn’t be enough. But still...

“I have to admit,” Falmelle-san said easily, “I thought you might say you wanted to stay here.”

“Wha...?”

Then she leaned in and whispered, “It’s rough. You’d better brace yourself.”

“Huh? Wha?”

“Consider it a word of warning—not from your mother, but from someone who’s been there.” She sounded almost... mischievous. “There was a time when I believed that if I could just be with the person I loved, just be by his side, I didn’t need anything else. That as long as I had those feelings, I could do anything. There was a time.”

And then she drew back again.

“Um... Oh...”

“Well, I’ll be seeing you, Myusel. If I can find some free time, I’ll come back for a visit. Until then, take care.” She smiled brightly.

And as for me...

“Okay. I’ll be waiting.” I was finally able to say it with earnestness and conviction: “Mother.”

Falmelle-san—no, my mother—blinked in surprise for a moment. But then the happy smile came back over her face. She turned and climbed into the carriage.

We were in the dining area, like always. In the same seats as always.

Shinichi-sama was eating breakfast. A single bentou box sat on the table.

There was no school today. We would be eating at home, so a packed lunch really wasn’t called for, but Shinichi-sama had specially asked me to prepare this for him.

“.........Mm.”

Shinichi-sama used his Ja-panese eating utensils, called chop-sticks, to grab one of the side dishes. I stood beside him, watching.

The lunch was, again, a kyara-ben. Compared to something Elvia-san might make, the artistic quality undoubtedly left something to be desired. But Shinichi-sama gamely worked his way through the lunch, using his chop-sticks to take it apart one mouthful at a time.

He would chew slowly, then take a drink.

Finally he turned back to me and said, “Yeah, this is delicious.”

His warm smile filled me with a happiness that gradually spread to my entire body. “Thank you very much.”

My kyara-ben were hardly beautiful enough to warrant compliments at this stage, but someday I would catch up to Elvia-san. I wouldn’t rush. But I wouldn’t dawdle. If I worked at it, I was sure I could get there.

I had the time.

“Yeah. It’s really, really good.”

I looked at him, watched the smile on his face.

In a corner of my mind, I could still hear my mother’s words.