APIBAGS Chapter 37

I wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, but it looked like they'd made up.

Watching Daisy and Troy in that fierce embrace, something in the back of my mind felt not-quite-right.

So Troy wasn't a third-rate villain in a supporting role after all. He was Jelly's love rival. There the two of them were, weaving their deeply moving tragic backstory together, while our Jelly—apparently incapable of sensing romantic competition even at point-blank range—stood at the back and yawned.

I could see his canines from here. Even someone watching a boring drama wouldn't look quite that bored. That idiot was going to regret this spectacularly later, and I wasn't going to feel even slightly sorry for him.

"It's all right. The children will be safe—Lady Evangeline will find them."

"Her Ladyship?"

And just like that, everyone was looking at me.

"That's right. She promised."

Daisy's eyes found mine with a kind of desperate hope in them. I owed Daisy something—a debt I hadn't settled yet, and there was still something she needed to tell me. And even if none of that were true, children had gone missing, and I couldn't in good conscience just wash my hands of it.

"Thank goodness…"

The visible relief on Troy's face was startling. We'd only just met. Why the trust? Was this that thing—where a terrible-tempered boss who's awful to everyone in your own department suddenly seems reassuring when they turn that energy outward on someone else?

Still. I'd said the words. Now I had to figure out how to actually do it.

Troy was the most suspicious person here, and he wasn't the culprit. It was the director, of all people. I'd overlooked the oldest cliché in mystery writing. Though, to be fair, Troy had appeared far too early in the story to be the real villain.

Don't forget you're inside a novel. No need to overthink this.

'Let me think through it properly.'

If I mapped the current situation onto a romance fantasy template: this was clearly a sub-couple arc. Daisy had trusted someone she shouldn't have, was going to be betrayed, overcome it, and emerge one tier higher. That was the shape of the story.

So—was the summoning circle the clue? I'd been puzzled about why one was drawn here at all. But I could work out a plausible reason.

In the original story, the person Daisy had turned to for help probably wasn't me—it would have been Jelly, or Kanna. They'd have come to help, seen the circle, and immediately deduced that Evangeline was behind everything.

Kanna had already seen a summoning circle when Donau kidnapped her. She'd have connected the dots instantly.

Wow. So if I hadn't come to help Daisy, the villainess's reputation would have gotten even worse? The narrative force of this world was genuinely terrifying.

Anyway. I hadn't been the one to show anyone the circle, so the director must have seen it at the temple—the same way the convent priest had. I was genuinely glad that painting had finally burned when it did.

"Jelly, can you pick up any scent?"

"No. The air is heavy and disorienting—it's hard even to breathe."

I'd felt something similar when we first entered this room. Which meant this was obviously—

A wind spirit!

The director had summoned a wind spirit to mask the scent. If Jelly wrapped things up too quickly, the episode would end before it had properly developed, so the story had to nerf him first. A classic pacing mechanic.

Therefore: the culprit was still inside the building.

Not that I meant anyone in this group was an accomplice—I meant the director was still in the building. There'd be some kind of hidden passage somewhere.

If she'd already taken the children and run, she wouldn't have needed a wind spirit to throw Jelly off the scent.

And in this situation, the most suspicious object in the room was that wardrobe.

Hidden doors in mystery stories are always behind a bookcase or a wardrobe. And a moment ago, a rat had burst out of that wardrobe—not from the way it went in, but scratching at the inner door trying to get out. The rat had clearly entered through a different passage and ended up trapped inside the wardrobe that way.

"My lady?"

I ran my hands carefully along the inside back wall of the wardrobe. Looking for a button, a switch, anything. Nothing turned up no matter how thoroughly I searched, so I pressed on the back panel with some force.

The rear wall of the wardrobe toppled backward.

Is that really how a secret passage is supposed to open? Anyone watching would think I'd just broken it.

"What on earth…"

I knew it. Beyond the collapsed wall, a staircase led downward.

Of course it did. The clichés clicking into place one after another because we were inside a novel—honestly, it was oddly satisfying.

A gust of wind came up from below. What was that smell? Jelly, sensitive as he was, clamped a hand hard over his nose and muttered:

"That stench is terrible. Why couldn't I smell it before?"

The spirit was probably blocking it. Wind spirits pulled that trick sometimes.

"Could they be down there?"

"Most likely."

I said it with more certainty than I let on. A hidden door had revealed itself? Then a hundred percent, they were below.

"Before we go down—make sure the papers are safe."

There was a chance a spirit and magic might clash badly enough to bring the building down around us, or we might not get another chance to collect them. Better to secure the evidence now.

At my words, Kanna instinctively reached for the documents—then paused, and passed them to Daisy instead. She was clearly worried she might get them wet again and repeat her mistake.

"Thank you…"

Daisy hugged the papers tight enough to crumple them.

Anything else? I looked around—and Pudding slipped out of my arms and landed lightly on the floor.

"Pudding? You're not coming with us?"

Pudding nodded and baked bread* on the summoning circle, looking entirely content to stay.

Fair enough. I had been dragging him around rather a lot lately.

"Then keep watch here for me."

And run if it gets dangerous. I scratched under his chin, picked up a candle, and turned to face the wardrobe.

"Let's go down."

We filed through in a line.

"There was a basement under here this whole time…"

"I had no idea either."

The candle flame guttered. Not a trace of light reached this place from outside—it was profoundly dark, and we went carefully, one hand on the wall as we descended. Fortunately, it wasn't very deep. Roughly one floor's drop.

"Faint, but I can smell soup."

That brought back the cooking equipment we'd found in the orphanage kitchen. Not an offering for a ghost—it had been food for the children down here. They cooked upstairs, ate below, which was why only the signs of cooking were left up there.

Had that hungry moaning I'd heard also been drifting up from below? If the gap between floors was shallow enough, sound would carry.

"They were really here the whole time."

"Should we split up to search?"

As it became certain the children were close by, Daisy and Troy grew visibly more urgent.

"No."

I understood the impulse completely, but absolutely not. If we separated, someone would get ambushed and hurt. That was inevitable.

The director might try to use the spirit against us. But on our side, we had a werewolf-magician with both the physique and the combat ability to match.

"We don't need to. Jelly—from here, can you tell which direction to go?"

Whatever the mechanism was, Jelly's sense of smell seemed to have returned the moment we passed through the hidden passage. From here, I could hand navigation over to him.

"The scent is spread too widely to distinguish clearly, but I'll try."

Jelly had apparently recognized the gravity of this situation, because instead of complaining that it was always him, he simply nodded and took the lead.

"It's wider than I expected. Roughly twice the footprint of the orphanage building above."

The basement was both wide and dark. Candles were mounted at sparse intervals along the walls, but they burned so faintly that a single breath would have snuffed them—no real help.

"Is it this way? Or that one?"

So even Jelly was getting turned around. The room he eventually guided us to had beds in it. On top of the beds were scattered what looked like trinkets and small toys, and at the sight of them, Daisy's eyes filled.

"These are the children's things."

They'd been living down here, then. Locked underground with their little belongings arranged on the mattresses like everything was ordinary. The ordinariness of it was the part that was hardest to look at.

We passed through the sleeping room and followed behind Jelly. Not very far before he stopped.

Jelly stood still, looking into the room ahead.

We'd arrived.

Even with her eyes squeezed shut, Yulma felt no pain.

Ranen had succeeded.

"Ngh…"

The director's pained groan made Yulma cautiously crack one eye open. But what spread before her was nothing like what she'd expected.

The man the director had brought was restraining her from behind, his arms locked around her body. The director's hand was frozen in mid-air, stopped there. The man was gripping her hard—hard enough that a low sound of pain had leaked from her.

The blade dropped. Yulma lurched backward. The knife hit the floor and made a sharp clang.

"Yulma… can we look now?"

"Absolutely not! Who told you to speak? Stay facing the wall, ears covered, and don't you dare turn around! Not a sound!"

The children's patience was clearly reaching its limit. Yulma shouted at them. They couldn't have heard that clang, surely.

"Let go of me this instant!"

The director's voice was sharp with command, but Melek didn't move. Yulma was baffled. If he could overpower her this easily, why had he been sitting quietly in those chains all this time?

Either way—if this man was on the children's side, subduing the director would be far simpler now.

Which meant Ranen might not have to get his hands dirty after all. Speaking of— Yulma quickly checked on Ranen. He seemed to have come down from his shock, but he was slumped where he stood. And the knife in his hand had something red on it.

Blood.

But the director was unharmed. Yulma's gaze jumped to Melek's back, and her stomach dropped.

Blood was welling up from Melek's flank in a dark surge.

Melek had stepped in to stop the director—and in doing so had taken Ranen's strike, meant for the director, full in his own body.

The useless idiot. He'd stabbed the wrong person and was shaking like a leaf over it. What did he think he was going to do about the director in a state like that?

Only the director, who didn't yet understand what had happened, was furious at Melek. Why, after all his passivity, was he interfering now? He was acting as though he were protecting the children. A demon, acting like that!

"Merai. Please stop."

The director went still.

She had heard those words before, she was almost certain of it. A very long time ago. Twenty years ago, or close enough…

While the director stood disoriented by a strange sense of déjà vu, Yulma made a fast decision.

The door was open. Whether the man was truly on the children's side, Yulma couldn't be certain—but it didn't matter either way. If he was with them, all the better. If he was the director's, he was wounded now, and wouldn't be able to give chase.

This was the moment. Yulma locked eyes with Ranen. Fortunately, Ranen seemed to have surfaced from his paralysis.

They counted together in silence.

Three seconds, and then they'd move. Three. Two…

"Yulma. Ranen."

And before the final count was reached, uninvited guests came crashing through into the room.

Or—perhaps not uninvited. Perhaps they were rescuers.

Translator note:

*The original Korean phrase "빵을 구웠다" can mean "baked bread" but in this context it's more likely a colloquial expression meaning to settle down or make oneself comfortable in a place.