APIBAGS Chapter 46

Jabaniya traced back through his memory. The exchange had been brief, but the impression had lodged itself somewhere deep.

'If I may be so bold—she resembles a god.'

'Rahel? She resembles Rahel... So that's why the Knight Commander has fallen for her so completely.'

Marik had not rebuked the irreverence. Instead, she gave Jabaniya his instructions.

'But first impressions and true nature may differ. Since Your Excellency regards the Knight Commander as a child of your own—I share the concern. Shouldn't we, as parents might, take a proper look at Lady Rohanson's character?'

'I will make absolutely certain of it.'

Marik had patted his shoulder at the vow, as though she trusted him entirely. Naturally, Jabaniya would do his utmost not to disappoint her.

After Marik and Jabaniya had vanished from the underground—after the last footstep had faded into nothing—Gabriel stepped into Merai's cell.

A haggard woman, as if the life had been drained clean out of her, raised her head at the sound of the door opening.

Pale as someone already halfway toward death. She had apparently spent time down here alongside the children, and yet being confined alone underground seemed considerably harder. Something was being extracted from her by it.

That Merai was suffering could only be because childhood trauma had come back to her. Before the director had taken her under his wing, Merai had been no different from the other children—just another instrument for the demon's entertainment.

"Have you eaten?"

Too ordinary a greeting for a prison, and Merai let out a hollow laugh.

"Quite the miserable thing to call a Grand Temple meal."

A loaf of bread. A bowl of soup. She knew this was more than sufficient for someone who was shortly to die—and the sarcasm came anyway.

"You'll be able to eat a full meal of whatever you'd like. Once."

Merai understood immediately what that once meant. He was talking about the last meal given to prisoners before execution. She accepted the news without flinching.

"Execution, then."

"Yes. Come dawn, you'll be handed over to the city guard."

The emotional disruption was smaller than she'd expected. Now that her death had a date, Merai felt herself becoming calm.

"The children you sold—Lady Rohanson has agreed to retrieve them."

"Buying them back? No different from me."

"Entirely different."

Word of Merai and the priest's arrest had spread quickly—in that brief interval, dozens of messages had arrived. Some wrote begging not to be reported to the imperial court. Some offered to return the money and send the children back.

Purchasing people was not something she would call agreeable. Even so, Evangeline had paid willingly and taken them back.

Of course, those pretending not to know were far more numerous. They would claim it hadn't been a purchase—just employment, a finder's fee paid, nothing more.

Those who had done business with Merai long ago, or those with a reputation for their heavy hands, stayed silent. Either the children were already dead, or in such condition they couldn't be shown in public.

When Gabriel passed along that news, Daisy had burst into tears.

'Stop crying. You haven't forgotten what you asked for, have you?'

'Yes. I asked you to find the children.'

'Right. In exchange for having you, I promised to find them all.'

Not the sort of thing Evangeline Rohanson usually did. How much comfort those blunt words had been to Daisy was self-evident.

Daisy had gone to her knees and begged her thanks. Even with Gabriel watching, she hadn't cared at all.

The woman who had been paralyzed with terror and condemned Evangeline as a demon was nowhere in evidence. In her place, Daisy offered genuine obeisance. The sight of it recalled the faithful at prayer before a statue of Rahel.

The difference was that, unlike Rahel, Evangeline Rohanson was a being who could answer her faithful.

A pale hand came to rest on top of Daisy's head. Perhaps because she was an existence that had never had cause to offer comfort—never needed to—the act of stroking came out deeply awkward.

Gabriel could not take his eyes off that clumsy hand. Would the hand that had just comforted Daisy still be cold?

He dismissed the thought and turned his attention to Merai.

Evangeline had promised to bring every child back. Merai's records had been useful in accounting for all of them.

"The ledger you left behind will be useful."

And the severity of punishment would increase accordingly. This hadn't been murder, and you couldn't levy significant consequences against nobility simply for purchasing a commoner orphan. Even so, the ledger—with its precise entries of dates, amounts, transaction locations, methods, and intermediaries—had at least made it possible to prove the crimes.

One of the buyers, a priest, hadn't gotten off with mere dismissal thanks to the ledger's concrete evidence. He'd been assigned to a country currently at war. Go serve there and die and never come back, was what that meant.

"Why did you keep the ledger?"

Like someone who still couldn't quite let something go.

"Thought it might come in useful later. Pull it out and you can get people to do things."

Except that the buyers had seemed to have no idea the ledger existed—this was apparently the first they were learning of it.

"I see."

But Gabriel did not press for the truth. She'd said what she'd said, and he had no particular reason to contradict her. Even if Merai had kept the ledger out of some faint vestigial guilt, that did nothing to erase what she had done. The sentence would not be reversed.

"There will be an interrogation tomorrow."

Instead, Gabriel stated the purpose of his visit.

"During it, the investigator will ask about Lady Rohanson."

He told Merai what she should say. If asked about Evangeline Rohanson, she should answer that Evangeline had been someone who came occasionally to volunteer at the orphanage. And Daisy was to be kept out of it entirely—her name should not come up at all.

Merai heard this and gave a hollow laugh. She was being asked to cover for the angel who had driven her to the cliff's edge—and on top of that, to claim she'd received support from a noble.

Every noble who had come to the orphanage had come to buy children. If there had been anyone who had genuinely given support out of goodwill, Merai would never have needed to sell them.

"Threatening me into false testimony? A knight my ass— so damn righteous and upstanding, how terribly impressive."

The sharp words landed on Gabriel without touching him. He was known to be sincere and just, but Gabriel had never considered himself quite so unblemished—so cutting words didn't cut.

"And why would I go along with that?"

"Because you remember what Daisy said. If you do."

Merai went still at that. When had it been? Right. Gabriel had considerately given Daisy the chance to say her last words to Merai—allowed them a brief exchange.

In her memory, Daisy was saying something.

'Director. I couldn't even bring myself to think of you as a mother.'

Of course. Merai had not been Daisy's mother.

Daisy had never been a particularly important child to Merai, either. She had a vague sense of having been scolded by her own son and the other children at some point. But what stayed with her, specifically, was Daisy's words.

'There was a time when I loved you. Truly.'

Daisy hadn't managed to let go entirely—she had pulled Merai into an embrace. And holding her tight, she had whispered close to her ear.

'The young lady has agreed to take us all in. So don't ever speak of her and the demon. If you have even a shred of guilt toward us—if you cared for us even a little, once—don't say a word.'

Merai felt not the slightest guilt, so Daisy's words should have been entirely useless.

"You heard that?"

"I have good ears."

After that, Merai said nothing more. She made no promise to testify as Gabriel had instructed—but Gabriel left the cell as though his business were done.

The next day, as Gabriel had said, Merai was transferred to the execution grounds.

Those sentenced to death would spend their remaining days here. The interrogation arrived as expected. When the investigator finished shuffling through his papers, he asked:

"Anything you want to eat before you die?"

Last supper, then.

"God knows why they bother feeding bastards worth killing. Could've just given me the bonus instead... Just spit it out."

When Merai didn't answer immediately, the investigator pushed.

"Soup. Potato soup. Mashed."

"Potato soup. Simple enough... Fine."

The investigator scrawled something with his ink, barely bothering. The contents weren't visible, but it was obvious: Merai—potato soup.

And before her execution, while the other inmates gnawed through wine and meat, Merai ate her potato soup alone.

Potato soup was what the orphanage served most often. A child once, about to be adopted out, had said she'd probably miss Merai's cooking when she left and asked for soup. After that, Merai had always made soup before sending a child off. She had no idea why she'd done that.

"Enjoyed your last supper?"

When she finished eating, Merai was led away by a guard. Cloth was pulled down over her head and she was seated. From somewhere came the sound of a blade being sharpened.

Merai closed her eyes.

The most utterly revolting meal she had ever eaten.

"What beautiful weather."

"It really is. With a breeze this cool, it's almost as if the scent of flowers is riding in on the wind."

Kanna opened the window at Evangeline's words. Unlike Kanna, Daisy caught something metallic running beneath the flower-scent drifting in through the frame.

"Perfect weather for dying."

Evangeline smoothed back the hair the wind had tangled loose across her face.

Daisy knew perfectly well who that death referred to. Today was the day Merai died.