APIBAGS Chapter 27

Gabriel would need to go meet the benevolent, inflexible bishop, so the considerate thing was to graciously remove myself.

Did I get everything done?

I'd extracted Henna and Kanna from a noble's harassment. They'd seen the painting—well, it had burned before I got to it, but I'd never intended to view a corpse painting in the first place, so no loss there. I'd recovered the testimony. I'd saved a knight and stacked one more favorability point with Gabriel.

Some new character called Daisy showed up out of nowhere, which was... a bit unexpected, but Gabriel still seems to like me, so: no problem!

"Shall we go?"

"Yes!"

Kanna answered with pure enthusiasm. She had been waiting here for hours, after all. Of course she wanted to leave.

I gathered my things and stood. Gabriel reached out as though to stop me, then thought better of it—his hand hung suspended in the air at an indeterminate angle, not quite catching anything.

"You're leaving?"

Would you like me to move in, then? I bit down on my tongue and held it. Right. I'm a rofan-world resident now. I can't go getting goosebumps every time the male lead drops a romantic line and then go stone-faced at him. I need to hook the male lead properly and pull off a villainess escape.

"The hour is late."

"Then I'll see you to your carriage."

Gabriel rose. He probably needed to visit the bishop in that direction anyway.

Outside, the sun had already begun its descent.

The carriage wasn't far. The coachman on the driver's box had been sitting there trembling, and when he saw me he inhaled sharply. Right—the sudden teleportation earlier. I'd completely forgotten.

I was about to explain to reassure him when the carriage door opened. Jelly stuck his face out without descending, peering at me from the gap.

"You're back?"

"Good work, Jelly."

He was angling for attention after his difficult errand. I was patting his head in acknowledgment when Gabriel called my name.

"Lady Rohanson."

I turned. Gabriel had his hand extended. What was— oh. He was offering to help me into the carriage. An escort.

I placed my hand over his.

Then his hand kept rising, and Gabriel brought his lips to the back of mine.

I almost hit him. Instinct. Not an escort, then. A farewell.

I was aware this was a standard greeting in romance novel settings. But experiencing it firsthand produced a feeling I couldn't quite categorize—something off, like wearing a shoe on the wrong foot. I should have at least had gloves on! Fortunately, Gabriel had only mimed the gesture, lips stopping just short of actual contact.

The sensation lingered anyway. No warm skin touching my bare hand—instead, breath. Moist, soft breath settling over my knuckles. And somehow I went suddenly, embarrassingly shy, with an overwhelming urge to just run.

"I look forward to seeing you again."

I didn't answer Gabriel's words. I simply got in the carriage. Kanna, the last to board, deliberately made as much noise as possible slamming the door shut.

I half-listened to Kanna grumbling her displeasure at Gabriel, and briefly considered telling her he was actually her destined partner.

The carriage rolled cheerfully on, completely indifferent to the state of anyone's heart.

Long after the Rohanson carriage had disappeared from sight, Raphaela finally managed to pull himself back to his senses, having stood there in a thoroughly unmoored state for some time.

"What... what did you just do?"

He was so flustered his words came out limping.

"A farewell greeting."

"What on earth possessed you to—"

The answer that came back from Gabriel was insufferably sensible. The problem being that if the person receiving it was Evangeline Rohanson, kissing someone's hand in farewell was arguably the less sensible option. Honestly—whether it was the Commander himself or Uriel beneath him, how did they manage to remain this uniformly untroubled? Michel was simply deranged; that one could be set aside.

"And just now, too, Commander. Why didn't you tell her everything? Before we came here, when Miss Evangeline and the nun were still speaking—your name came up. I'm fairly certain the nun had told the young lady everything already..."

When Evangeline Rohanson had pressed Gabriel hard about what he'd heard, Raphaela had desperately wanted the Commander to simply tell her the truth. The moment he'd met Evangeline's red eyes, something in his chest had fallen away entirely. Her gaze at that moment had been uncommonly sharp—like the hilt of a knife, worked down to its thinnest, most precise edge.

So Raphaela had tried to signal it clearly, with every look and gesture he had at his disposal: just tell her, tell her straight. And then Gabriel had opened his mouth and produced a lie.

At that point Raphaela had made his peace with the world and begun composing a quiet farewell to it—only for Gabriel to go further and hand Evangeline the testimony papers outright.

Papers which naturally contained, in full detail, every single thing Daisy had confessed. What was the point of being honest with one's hands while the mouth said the opposite? But Evangeline had looked at those papers and simply let everything go.

"Why handle it that way? You must have had your reasons, Commander, but..."

It had been Gabriel's instinct—something as reflexive and involuntary as breathing.

From what he had observed over time, what Evangeline Rohanson most valued was complete immersion in her role. Everything about her behavior until now, and the particular calibration of her speech, suggested she was acting always with the explicit purpose of ensuring those around her perceived her as Evangeline Rohanson.

The only time Evangeline Rohanson had abandoned her lady-like conduct was when Gabriel had failed to read the room and announced that he wished to help her. She had been furious because he'd been trying to pull the role away from her.

So Gabriel had accommodated her again. He couldn't lie outright and earn her wrath, so he'd handed over the papers, said the opposite of the truth, and signaled that he intended to look the other way. As it turned out, Gabriel's handling had apparently suited Evangeline just fine.

And in performing that deliberate farewell gesture, Gabriel had learned one more thing.

He had extended his hand for the greeting.

Evangeline's height was not small, but the difference in their builds was considerable—and her hand, accordingly, was far smaller than his.

Her body temperature was extremely low. He had folded his hand over hers and concentrated on the fingertips, quietly measuring her pulse.

While miming the kiss he had already known she would not pull her hand away. He'd deliberately slowed his pace, bringing his lips closer with deliberate care, counting heartbeats. Slow—but her heart was unambiguously beating.

Small—but she was breathing.

He had suspected a corpse being forced into motion. She was unmistakably alive.

Daisy had said that Evangeline Rohanson was animating a dead body, but in that particular, Daisy was wrong. The thought that what inhabited that body was not human—that thought remained exactly as it had been.

Evangeline regarded people as something beneath insects, and then somehow made it feel natural to be treated accordingly.

The first moment he had seen her was still vivid.

The only dead thing among every living, breathing creature in the room.

The single cold thing amid the warmth of everything else.

That was why Evangeline Rohanson was extraordinary.

Without realizing he'd done it, Gabriel pressed his lips together. He hadn't actually kissed her at all, and yet Evangeline's cold had stayed on him like a brand.

Uriel, having gone to the infirmary, set Michel down on a bed. Was she free to leave now? Michel had already been thoroughly doused in holy water, so there probably wasn't anything further to treat... She was thinking this, already moving toward the door, when Seraph came in.

Earlier there had been the sound of swords meeting—they'd apparently been sparring. There was a shallow cut near his neck. Seraph took one look at the completely soaked Michel and recoiled.

"Sir Michel! Wh—what is this? Why are you drenched? Are you ill? That's not cold sweat, is it? Please don't die on me, Sir Micheeeel—!"

"Sir Seraph. Calm yourself. It's simply holy water."

"What? Were you injured that severely? Or—did you jump into a fountain?"

Seraph was a person of particularly delicate nerves and considerable anxiety. Uriel explained what had happened so that Seraph wouldn't arrive at any needless conclusions.

The progress of this explanation was hindered considerably by the fact that Seraph inserted his own theories between every sentence Uriel spoke, consistently bending the story into new shapes.

The conversation between the two of them continued until Gabriel and the rest of the knights had finished seeing Evangeline off and stopped by the infirmary.

"That's the whole of it."

"I see... I understand completely."

Raphaela, surveying this exchange, almost turned around and closed the door again behind him. Flighty Seraph paired with blunt, thick-headed Uriel—a genuinely horrifying combination.

Fortunately, the infirmary also contained Jeremy, another knight. Jeremy had been midway through sparring when Seraph stepped away to be treated and never returned, which had sent Jeremy looking for him—only to be ensnared himself.

Jeremy caught Raphaela's eye and waved his arms in mute, frantic appeal.

"Raphaela! Commander!"

"Commander—Lady Rohanson?"

"She's gone."

"Ah..."

The depth of Uriel's disappointment was sufficient that Raphaela briefly wondered in genuine confusion whether gone was a euphemism for something permanent.

"And Michel?"

"Still asleep—oh, he's awake?"

Seraph and Michel, who was lying there with both eyes wide open, exchanged an awkward look. Raphaela pressed a hand to his own forehead.

"Ah... my apologies. The two of you were having such a thoroughly engaging conversation that I found it difficult to interrupt."

Michel, scratching his cheek, pushed himself to sitting. Moving presented no apparent problems.

"Michel. Are you all right?"

"Yes. I'm sorry to have caused you worry."

"Do you remember what happened?"

"Yes. Parts of it I remember directly, and having just heard Uriel's account, I have a reasonable sense of the rest."

Gabriel and Raphaela examined Michel, found no injuries, concluded he appeared entirely unharmed, and were deeply, collectively relieved. It was thanks to the holy water Evangeline had poured over him. Looking at him now, his mental faculties seemed to have returned to their usual working order. Still, just to be certain.

"Michel. Are you all right now? Not your body—your head."

"Pardon?"

"Do you still think what was depicted in that painting was an angel?"

"Ah... I apologize. I genuinely don't know what I was thinking at the time. Looking back on it now, it was an extraordinarily ominous and strange painting."

"Back to yourself, then."

Raphaela exhaled a long breath and settled on the bed across from Michel. Michel, you little—worrying everyone like that.

"Michel, you should be thanking us on your knees. We locked you in your room and told you to collect yourself, and somehow you escaped and fearlessly threw yourself at a fire. If it weren't for Lady Rohanson you'd have been seriously hurt."

Raphaela allowed himself the relief of voicing all of it, the accumulated weight of the past few hours directed squarely at Michel. Michel listened with appropriate sheepishness—until Evangeline's name came up, at which point his eyes brightened with something that was not sheepishness at all.