APIBAGS Chapter 48

The season-opening audience ceremony had already concluded, and the Crown Prince's thirtieth birthday was in two weeks. Perfect timing.

Gabriel had taken it upon himself to procure the invitation. The dress as well, apparently, and the chaperone. I had to hand it to him—the romance fantasy male lead, it seemed, managed everything from beginning to end with meticulous thoroughness.

Which meant he'd also have to teach me to dance.

I'd felt briefly guilty about offloading quite this much work, until I reconsidered and realized this was a catastrophe Gabriel had called down entirely on himself. The guilt departed.

Right. He was the one who'd asked to be my partner first. It's always the same story with love. The one who loved more lost.

Come to think of it—how had Dolly known Gabriel was my partner?

I hadn't said anything. Had it already spread through social circles that Gabriel had asked me? Society gossip really did travel fast.

"Take care on your way home, Dolly."

"Yes. Thank you."

Finally. Finally, finally, this hellish stretch of time was over.

Dolly Fonor smiled pleasantly, made her farewells, and got herself out of the room as quickly as dignity allowed. She eased the door shut and drew a long, slow breath. Out of Lady Evangeline's line of sight, she could finally breathe.

'Damn... just damn it all to hell.'

Her hands were still trembling—and this was not withdrawal. No matter how nicely Bishop Jabaniya had phrased the request, she should have refused.

Some time ago, word had begun to circulate—passing person to person, the way rumors do—that Count Rohanson was looking for tutors. Rumor had it that the sickly young lady who had been waiting only for death had made a miraculous recovery and was now preparing in earnest to enter society.

Perhaps because she was well past the appropriate age for a debut, Evangeline Rohanson had lately become the favored subject of gossip among those with nothing better to do.

She was faking the illness, hiding herself away because she was plain-looking. Or: the real Evangeline died, and the Count had found a lookalike replacement. Or, from someone claiming to have caught a glimpse at the temple: the aura she gave off was extraordinary—like an angel had descended to earth.

Because Evangeline had used illness as an excuse to avoid society entirely, she had no personal connections with anyone, and the rumors had grown accordingly, richer and wilder with every retelling.

Dolly had paid no attention to any of it. Until Bishop Jabaniya made his proposal.

She had gone, quietly and in secret as always, to buy holy water.

'A very simple task. Do it properly and I'll make it worth your while.'

He wanted her to enter the household as a tutor, find out what Evangeline Rohanson was like and what her relationship was with Knight Commander Gabriel, and relay it back to him. In exchange, he would supply holy water once every three months.

Dolly was a severe drug addict. Severely enough that she had been divorced over it. When the addiction grew unmanageable, she would cycle through holy water treatment every six months to keep it in check. Both happened to be habits that hemorrhaged gold coins, and she had been struggling financially for some time—so she had applied immediately for a position offering both holy water and a salary.

She hadn't even thought to ask why he wanted the information. Looking back, she should have.

Thanks to the carefully doctored application materials Jabaniya had prepared, Dolly had sailed through the hiring process. The beginning had been easy. How difficult could it possibly be, watching one sickly girl.

A misjudgment.

The actual Evangeline Rohanson, encountered face-to-face, was deeply and unsettlingly strange. An angel? Frail? Plain? Among everyone who had made Evangeline the subject of their jokes—how many of them had actually stood in front of her?

'She wasn't ordinary, that much is certain.'

Even Bishop Jabaniya's assessment—from someone who had, apparently, met her—was wrong. The old man must have developed cataracts with age. Whatever he had been looking at when he dismissed her so casually.

Skin pale enough that you would expect to see veins running beneath it, except there were none visible—as if blood did not flow at all. Two red eyes like the most expensive rubies pushed into empty pupils. Evangeline Rohanson looked less like a person than like one of the angelic sculptures decorating a temple.

A sculpture that moved.

Her vision had gone spinning. Her head was being excavated without permission.

She hadn't taken anything, and yet words kept being pushed into her mind, one after another, as though someone were speaking directly into her ear. A crawling itch, like insects working their way inside.

Prostrate yourself at her feet this instant. Kneel and worship. Praise. Exalt. Revere. Adore. Extol. Glorify.

Every time she was in Lady Evangeline's presence, those sounds circled through her head.

The reason Dolly had not surrendered to them was that she was already well acquainted with similar voices—the ones that arrived during her worst withdrawal episodes.

She had lived with jump from the window and throw yourself at a moving carriage as background noise for years. Adding one more voice to the harmony didn't change much. Occasionally they tangled together: slash your wrists to prove your worship. Still ignorable. For now.

Familiar, though, was not the same as sustainable. She understood completely why the other tutors had fled. Without a specific, concrete purpose the way she had, it would be impossible to last.

What were the people employed here made of, mentally. Were they all on something.

The three maids who kept close to Evangeline Rohanson—those three seemed the worst of it. Something had been excised from their heads, or their sense of self-preservation was simply broken.

The red-haired maid called Kanna seemed to have already given herself over entirely to the voice. Daisy watched Dolly with open suspicion. The most unremarkable, most approachable-seeming one was the person named Henna.

"Are you leaving now?"

She ran into Henna on her way out. The gloomy-faced woman asked quietly.

Actually—Dolly had left the room first, so Henna should have been downstairs by now. The fact that she was still on the same floor meant Henna had waited.

"Shouldn't you stop by the butler's office? Shall we go together?"

Dolly had been about to decline, then thought of the holy water. "Yes, all right." It was an opportunity to pry for information.

During her time as a tutor, Dolly had been recording everything she'd seen and experienced at the Rohanson estate—the plan being to write it all out in detail to Jabaniya when she left for the day. Her impressions of Lady Evangeline, her attendants, the eerily silent staff. Once she walked out the door, she'd write and send it.

But no replies had come. Did that mean she was supposed to keep watching?

The information she was sending must simply be too thin. He needed something more substantial. The least he could do was tell her to continue.

If things kept on this way, she was going to end up licking the soles of Evangeline Rohanson's feet.

Praise her.

"Pardon?"

"You're the only one left, Dolly. The other tutors all quit so quickly—Lady Evangeline was sad about that."

"Was she? Lady Evangeline seems very kind."

"She is."

Dolly kept up her compliments, trying to get into Henna's good graces, but Henna showed no particular gratification. Praising Lady Evangeline worked enormously well on Kanna—why were these sisters so different.

At the butler's office, Phloxse produced a generous bonus. That would keep her comfortable for a week. Dolly thanked him sincerely as she pocketed it.

"And, Miss Dolly—you are upholding the confidentiality clause, I trust?"

"Of course. I have no one to tell, anyway."

"Please continue to do so, then."

She made the butler a promise she had no intention of keeping. Once she was clear of the estate, she would write to Bishop Jabaniya immediately. She had learned a fair amount today.

"I'll take my leave."

She said her goodbyes and moved to go.

Her collar yanked backward.

She hit the floor. Coughing hard, throat constricted, eyes watering.

"Gh—! cough, cough—Wh—what—are you —"

Henna.

From the floor, Dolly could see Henna's shoes. Why now. Had she been discovered as a spy? Had the butler's comment been a warning?

Die to prove your devotion.

Die. So that was it. She was going to be killed. Annihilated.

The other tutors hadn't quit. They had been killed. That cursed old bastard Jabaniya—he’d sent her to die.

'She's going to kill me—!'

Dolly clawed toward the door, gasping. But no matter how desperately she scrambled, Henna covered the distance in two steps.

A shadow fell across her. Wrong. No escape.

Henna looked down at her with something that resembled sympathy.

"Miss Dolly. That's a window."

Dolly raised her head.

"Oh."

There had been a door there. She was certain of it. Now there was only a wide-open window. This was the second floor. A fall wouldn't kill her—but she couldn't explain why she had mistaken a window at this height for a door.

The withdrawal was getting worse. She needed something. Drugs. Or at least holy water. Right now. Dolly's hands trembled as she found the drugs she'd been keeping in reserve—the ones she'd been hoarding because she had no money left to buy more. She inhaled through her nose.

Phuu—hah.

Her mind went soft at the edges. The world swirled, colors bleeding into each other. Henna's face contorted. Came apart into two, decomposed into ten, reassembled into thirty.

On the spinning palette, another shape appeared. A drop of black paint, falling. The ink spread fast.

"Oh, that was careless. I was told to keep her alive for another two weeks."

Something dark and distorted spoke. Thirteen eyes regarded Dolly. Four mouths moved.

"But in this state—perhaps I don't need to do anything at all."

The distorted shape hummed something and drifted away. The world stayed wrong. Someone lifted her. She panicked and kicked, and the other person said their name—Henna. She had heard that name somewhere.

Henna—with three circles hanging from her—gripped Dolly's shoulders with bruising force.

"Miss Dolly. I'll say this one more time. Please take it to heart. If you want to live, never go against Lady Evangeline. Simply obey her. Lady Evangeline is kind—she won't come asking about whatever crimes you've committed."