APIBAGS Chapter 23

Serious and reliable? Look at him—all I see is some swaggering street trash who idles through life—where exactly is 'serious' coming from?

Jelly sauntered over and came to a stop just behind Evangeline. Then he spotted Daisy, who was standing there talking with her, and his eyes went wide.

"Oh? You again?"

Having apparently recognized Jelly in turn, Daisy went even paler than before.

"I—I'll be going now."

Daisy backed away in agitation, and eventually broke into a run. Raphaela called out after her, startled by the sudden flight.

"Miss Daisy! You need to come with me!"

"I'm fine! The carriage stand is right there!"

The line of waiting carriages was practically at their feet. Since the distance was so short and they weren't likely to learn anything important by walking it together, Raphaela didn't chase her.

"She's gone."

He'd made a show of guiding Lady Evangeline Rohanson down the path so the two of them could talk at ease, putting some distance between himself and them. All of his attention, however, was directed rearward.

"Who was that? Oh—the girl just now? Mm... Someone I exchanged a little help with?"

"No. I'm saying she helped me. He got her out and we escaped together."

"Cleaned up the loose ends too."

Evangeline's words reached him as silence, again. A halved conversation—and yet, from the half he'd heard, Raphaela had untangled the thread.

The answer to what he'd just asked Uriel had come back from the man instead.

That man had helped Daisy escape from the convent. And the man was passing himself off as Evangeline's escort.

Evangeline hadn't known Daisy existed. Daisy, on the other hand, had already known about Evangeline—and the summoning circle. That was how she'd been able to detect what Father Berga was doing. And yet the one who'd helped Daisy flee was allegedly the escort of an Evangeline Rohanson who'd had no idea Daisy existed.

Was helping her an act of pure one-sided goodwill? But then why had that man been at the convent at all? Of all times, at that exact moment? An outsider—how would he even have—

Raphaela's mind started spinning—round and round, thinking, deducing, chasing the most ideal answer it could construct.

Just as his thinking grew more tangled, a commotion broke out behind him. Raphaela, who had been straining his ears to focus on Evangeline's conversation, was the first to notice the sound rising.

"Fire! There's a fire!"

"A knight! Someone come over here!"

"No—!"

Cries utterly out of place in the Grand Temple's still and sacred air. Uriel moved without hesitation and ran first. Raphaela moved to follow—then stopped, looking between Evangeline and Jelly. What was he supposed to do with these two? He couldn't leave them behind.

"Let's go have a look."

Evangeline had apparently read his dilemma. Raphaela nodded, stepped past them, and broke into a run. Fire? Fire? A strange déjà vu gripped him.

He sprinted toward the sound. Which was why it took him a moment to register how familiar the place he arrived at actually was.

People were writhing in agony, shrieking. No one appeared to be injured—and yet knife-edged screams tore out of them at intervals, sudden and unguarded. The ones crying out were all staring at a single point. Raphaela joined their line of sight.

Fire demon.

What burned was Jim Nofedi's masterpiece—the painting of Donau Blue. The scene it depicted—a world after the fire had consumed everything—had caught fire again

Relief that no one was hurt—and then the creeping horror of watching people weep and wail in sync with a canvas. Even Uriel, who'd run ahead, seemed to share the feeling; she stood staring at them with an expression hollowed out into blankness.

And then the people tangled in their shared anguish spotted Raphaela. On their knees, crawling; on their feet, stumbling; on two shaking legs that barely held them, they came.

"Knight, please put out the fire."

"Sir knight, the painting—the painting is on fire—"

Each one murmured their own appeal, but Raphaela could make sense of all of it. Put out the fire on the painting. That was the only thing they wanted.

Does it even need to be?

If the painting burned to nothing, wouldn't these people come back to themselves?

That hypothesis held Raphaela in place. Uriel wasn't far off. While both of them hesitated, footsteps sounded from behind.

Was it Evangeline Rohanson? The thought had barely formed when a sweep of long golden hair filled his field of vision.

"Michel?"

"Are you insane—why is he here? I had him locked in his room!"

He reached out to grab Michel in alarm, but the people clinging to Raphaela's legs and arms and clawing at his clothes got in the way.

They saw the knight's dress uniform Michel wore and made the same appeal.

"Sir knight, please save the painting!"

Raphaela knew instinctively that Michel was going to answer that plea. Michel grabbed the burning painting with his bare hands. He was trying to smother the living flames with his palms, but rather than putting them out, he was only scorching himself.

Crazy bastard—can he not feel it?

Raphaela shook off the people clinging to him. Wrenched his arms free, kicked them away with his feet. He didn't want to lay hands on anyone—but he couldn't keep watching Michel pull this kind of insanity.

"Michel! Come back to yourself! Let that go!"

The painting burned on without slowing. Less than half remained. Michel's skin was turning red and raw, and embers had caught on his clothes. Left like this, Michel was going to burn along with it. Raphaela dragged his feet forward with the people still attached.

"What on earth is this?"

And then a voice from behind—unusually clear, like cold water. A corpse whispering at his ear. The heat dissolved and a chill ran through him. Something vast was behind him, watching Raphaela with a patience that did not blink.

Evangeline Rohanson crossed through the tableau of hell at her leisure. The people who'd been clinging to Raphaela stared after her with their mouths open, slack. The moaning stopped. The anguished screaming stopped, clean as if it had never existed.

With everyone standing still, their souls apparently seized by something, all of them staring only at Evangeline—she was able to reach Michel without any obstruction at all.

Michel looked up at her from where he was, still clutching the painting to his chest.

And in that moment, Raphaela witnessed the birth of another fanatic.

A figure all in white. The only color that existed anywhere on her was those red eyes, burning the same way as the fire still clinging to the canvas. At the instant their eyes met—

What could Michel have been seeing in those eyes. Longing, astonishment, reverence, exaltation—every adjective in the language, and still not one of them could contain what Michel felt without reducing it.

Evangeline moved a finger, and Jelly, reading the intent precisely, produced a flask of holy water. Evangeline Rohanson uncorked it and poured it over Michel.

One flask. Two flasks. On until the flames went out.

The fire that had seemed about to swallow Michel whole—extinguished, just like that.

In the silence, the sound of water falling was the only thing that existed. Michel was soaked through like a drowned rat. Droplets gathered at the tips of his wet, drooping hair and plunged to the floor.

Drenched in holy water, blinking slowly, Michel finally ran out of strength and crumpled.

"Sir Michel!"

Uriel rushed forward and caught him before he hit the ground. Unconscious though he was, something about his expression as his eyes fell shut looked oddly peaceful.

Evangeline pried from Michel's hands—which had stayed clenched even as he collapsed—the only fragment of the painting that remained. Everything had burned away except the summoning circle.

Evangeline Rohanson tossed the damp scrap of paper to Jelly.

"Hup."

Watching him catch it with practiced ease, he felt the whole thing tip into unreality.

Everyone else was still glazed over. If they'd been crying like before, or furious, or something—it might not have felt this surreal.

"I poured holy water over him, so there's no need for separate treatment."

Evangeline stood alone in the calm, speaking without ceremony.

Wow... the moral and ethical standards of rofan folk—are they actually for real? I feel like the life is draining out of every cell in my body.

Out of nowhere Uriel had bolted, and Raphaela had sent me such a passionate look of longing to follow that I told him to go ahead—and he took off at a full sprint.

The two of them ran so fast I couldn't keep up, so I followed the direction Jelly pointed. Werewolves really do have remarkable noses. Canine family and all.

I made it there on whatever reserve energy I had left, and found an absolutely baffling situation waiting for me.

A person was on fire and they were all just standing there gaping, not a single one making any move to do anything. Not one person making any attempt to help. I felt like I was watching one of those videos where bystanders who, instead of calling for help, immediately start filming to post on social media—except you don't even have phones!

When Donau's house burned, everyone had gathered round to watch. And now there was a human being on fire, and they were watching that too? People with absolutely no sense of civic responsibility!

"What on earth is this?"

I genuinely meant it—what was this? The man was on fire! And it was spreading to him! This is bad. Fire extinguisher, where's a fire extinguisher! Oh—right, they wouldn't have one here.

Water, then. Where was water? I vaguely remembered a fountain in the garden outside the temple. Was there anything closer? I was looking frantically around when I spotted Jelly holding his bottles.

I could have wept with relief.

I grabbed the holy water from him and yanked out the stopper. Poured it. I wanted it to gush out—glug, glug—but it just dribbled out in a thin thread. A trickle! What is this, a babbling brook?! Frustrating enough that I snapped my fingers at Jelly, who to his credit immediately understood and handed me a bottle with the cap already off.

About six bottles of holy water later, the fire went out. Fortunately this isn't ordinary water, so apparently it has superior extinguishing properties as well.

I was shaking with relief. The person who'd been completely engulfed in flames just moments ago was now dripping wet and looking up at me. Soaked absolutely through—a drowned rat in a knight's uniform. Maybe it was because he was waterlogged, but he looked rather pitiful. I felt a little bad. ...S-sorry! But getting hit with water is better than burning to death, isn't it?

"Sir Michel!"

Apparently not, from Michel's perspective. He fainted and crumpled, and Uriel barely caught him. Raphaela was looking at me the way you look at someone who has committed a social offense you can't quite name. I put out the fire and this is the reception I get? Even Jelly was giving me this wounded look—so unfair that I had no choice but to quietly avert my eyes.

Genuinely unfair. I hadn't done anything wrong. The injustice of it. Not a single thing done wrong, treated like a criminal anyway—fine, if I'm getting blamed regardless, I might as well make a big show of deserving the credit.

Did they think I just poured plain water on him? That was holy water!

"Since I used holy water, he shouldn't need additional treatment."