APIBAGS Chapter 59

"Like an angel!"

"Yes! Miss Mary, you did wonderfully!"

"Like a fairy!"

"Isn't she just!"

Artemisia and the small child took turns in perfect chorus, offering their praises. Gabriel watched them—the chatter of it, like listening to birdsong—and found Evangeline observing with an expression he did not usually see on her.

The same matchless arrogance. The same indifference, as always. And yet Gabriel sensed something from her. A small warmth.

The sight of her fitting a dress like any ordinary noble young lady, going along with a small child's noisy prattle—it was as though he were seeing the wholly genuine Evangeline Rohanson. Lady Rohanson seemed to be growing more accustomed to the human guise. More precisely, she was drawing closer to being 'Evangeline Rohanson.'

Artemisia, noticing he had drifted into his own thoughts, demanded a retrial.

"Come now, Sir Knight! You know what you ought to say by now, don't you?"

His own impression? What the two of them had been offering as examples were every beautiful noun the world possessed. Fairies. Angels. Gabriel searched among them for one that hadn't yet been claimed, and found himself arriving at a familiar phrase. The angel Mary mentioned had brought it to the surface.

Among all the words written on the white slip of paper that had come from Donau's remains—the phrase "angel of light" was the one that had stayed with him most. There were no better words for Evangeline Rohanson. Angel was already spoken for. Only one thing remained.

"Lady Rohanson, you are like the brightest star."

Quite literally: radiance. He had said the most brilliant star, but in truth he should have added more qualifiers. Among everything that rose while the sun was absent—there was nothing brighter.

"We'll be taking our leave! Enjoy your time together."

Artemisia, who had been smiling slyly to herself over whatever scheme occupied her thoughts, took the other two with her and left the room.

The briefly opened door closed again. All that remained in the world, cut off from everything outside, was Gabriel and Evangeline.

"Would you dance one song with me?"

This time, Gabriel extended his hand first. He did not know why Evangeline had asked him to dance. But the fact that he could continue holding her hand was an advantage. Gabriel ran warm.

"One song won't be nearly enough."

She had said she'd never danced before and feared making mistakes, and had asked him to be her practice partner. But there was no world in which Evangeline could not have memorized the steps. She retained, very well, the things she found interesting or needed to know.

Of course, he had no idea how difficult it was to get inside that fence of hers. Not long ago, Michel had cried into his pillow because Lady Rohanson hadn't recognized him.

"I would be happy to accompany you for however long you need."

So the reason Evangeline had gone out of her way to ask him to dance was likely to immerse herself in the role of 'Evangeline Rohanson.'

Why would radiance itself wear the guise of Evangeline Rohanson?

He could not begin to imagine what patience it required—for a being that looked down upon humans to pretend to be one.

Gabriel placed his hand at Evangeline's waist and took their position. He was glad she leaned into him.

There was no accompaniment. But if there were music playing now, it would be a dirge written for him.

While Evangeline had been fitting the dress, the sun had set, and darkness swelled beyond the curtains. Daisy, marking the hour as it fell, had drawn them closed. With the curtains drawn, the room grew darker still. In that darkened world, only Evangeline shone—undiminished. She had claimed all the surrounding light for herself alone, leaving everything around her to sink deeper into shadow, and the star stood out all the more sharply for it.

Gabriel thought of himself as the dark ring that circled the star. Robbed of all his own light, and still his gaze returned to Evangeline, orbiting her.

"It seems that's just what happens—when someone holds you in their eyes."

He was not the only one. Even those who had trembled with dread and been seized by terror—after entering the garden Evangeline tended, they had stopped thinking of leaving. The maids she cherished. The children she had rescued. Michel. Even Artemisia. Turning their backs on whichever sun they had originally faced, all of them were looking toward the same light now.

"My convictions, too."

His philosophy.

"My ideals."

Everything he had built from the day he was born felt pointless.

"It is as though you are rebuilding the world from its very foundations—at your own whim."

That was the kind of influence Evangeline held. It felt as though the signposts had all been pulled up and replanted in new directions.

If not for Evangeline, Gabriel would never have taken an interest in a being beyond reason. If not for Evangeline, Daisy would never have returned to the Rohanson estate. And Artemisia would never have abandoned her long-held convictions, to make clothes for maids that fell entirely outside her own taste.

"That sounds rather like a confession."

Evangeline said it with a deeply dissatisfied expression.

A confession.

It was not the kind of warmth that brought mild breezes with it. Was this fear? Or dread? When he was with Evangeline, a chill ran through him as though he were looking at something wholly alien. His heart trembled as if witnessing something uncanny.

When Evangeline shed the guise of an ordinary noble young lady and revealed the arrogant, world-weary nature beneath—he was frightened, and could not look away. What he felt now was closest to curiosity. No different from peering through a door left just barely ajar. It was likely this same thing that had led Gabriel to shelter Evangeline even to the point of deceiving the temple.

"You like me?"

So rather than correcting himself, Gabriel watched Evangeline's reaction. He had decided that saying he held feelings for her sounded better than saying he felt curious about her.

His choice had been wrong.

He had touched what could not be touched.

The face that had been faintly smiling froze, and expression drained from it entirely. It was as though he had been returned to the moment he had first laid eyes on Evangeline. The small emotion that had been quietly budding vanished, and only a cold fragment remained.

Evangeline Rohanson was a star suspended in the sky. If she fell and touched the earth, the world would break—unable to bear that light. But Gabriel understood now, only now, that a fallen star is also crushed out of shape.

"Without even knowing who I am?"

Evangeline looked at him. Her eyes were as though blood moved through them.

In that moment, something broke.

The candles flickered. His vision was curtained into blackness as though both eyes had gone out—then light flooded back and everything split wide open. Had the room always been this large? Something seemed to have twisted. Candle wax dripped from the ceiling.

The walls and furniture were covered in fibrous tissue. The flesh pulsed—as if to prove it was alive. From the ceiling hung clusters of eyeballs, sprouting from every crack and crevice. Each blinked at its own independent rate.

With every turn of the dance, something soft burst underfoot. Gabriel bit down on his lower lip.

In a world marked through and through with red filth, Evangeline Rohanson alone was pure white. She was the only place he could look. But even her irises were red, and so he could not quite meet her gaze. Her eyes were the heart of this place. 

That heart—the one that looked like her eye—whispered directly into his ear.

"Sir Gabriel, you need only play along with me appropriately."

The voice was sweet in a way entirely unlike a reprimand. The soft resonance could have been a forked-tongued demon's enticement—or a voice guiding him toward the right path.

As if sensing he had gone unusually tense, Evangeline brushed his shoulder lightly.

The past repeated.

At the Rohanson estate, when he had crossed a line, Evangeline had looked at him. Did she wear the same expression now? Did she wear the same pitiless expression? He was afraid to look. Gabriel looked at the mirror instead.

The world reflected in it held no filth. The sight of the clean room brought relief. That was probably the real world. He kept his gaze there, telling himself so. Then at the moment he saw himself in the mirror—dancing—he bit down hard on his lip. A thin, metallic taste of blood spread through his mouth.

Evangeline Rohanson was not in the mirror.

If what was in the mirror was the real world, then she equally did not exist in it.

His vision flickered again. As if that had been all it wanted to show him, the room found its original colors. Very quiet.

"Shall we stop here?"

Her expression was that of someone watching an ant drown in sugar water.

As if that were the signal, his blocked airway opened. Gabriel drew breath. From Evangeline came the scent of dried, withered flowers—sweet.

The moment she drew herself away, the fragrance left him.

Evangeline stepped back and, in a posture that seemed painted rather than learned, gathered the hem of her dress and dipped lightly into a curtsy. When she straightened again, she looked entirely composed.

"I quite like you, actually."

Evangeline curved her eyes and smiled softly. It was the kind of smile that Jim Nofedi, had he been alive, would have sold his soul to paint.

Evangeline glanced at the mirror—as if checking whether her mask was properly in place. Gabriel turned his gaze in the same direction.

In the mirror, Evangeline Rohanson wore no expression at all.

Evangeline told him she was tired from dancing and suggested he head back. Having no remaining reason to stay at the Rohanson estate, they exchanged farewells. In this farewell, Evangeline did not offer her hand.

It felt like walking over a swamp. His footsteps were unusually heavy. Every few steps he turned to look back at the Rohanson estate. But the curtains were drawn fast, and nothing inside was visible.

"Are you heading back?"

Having lingered far too long, he encountered Kanna on her walk through the garden. Cradled in her arms was the cat he had seen at the orphanage some time ago.

The cat that had once fawned on him in his own arms was nowhere to be found now. It did not so much as acknowledge him. Cats were, by nature, fickle creatures. Gabriel withdrew his interest.

"Miss Kanna. It has been some time."

Gabriel gathered himself and greeted her with proper courtesy.