APIBAGS Chapter 61

Gabriel dreamed.

The familiar nightmare.

A carriage driving hard. A child under the wheel. The coachman cursed and drove on. Someone whispered it was a bishop's carriage.

That high-ranking lord made great contributions catching sorcerers, they say. Getting in the way of a carriage like that—isn't that man a sorcerer too? Don't go near. You'll get cursed. The murmuring reached him. A few people who had started to help heard those words and walked away.

Gabriel begged the adults around him for help.

"Please—save me—my leg, the bleeding won't stop—"

The people standing there only watched. None of them dared help a child who had nearly overturned the carriage of one of God's chosen.

Gabriel took the child on his back. He promised: just hold on a little longer. I'll find a priest and ask for help. The child was a full head taller than him. His body swayed under the weight.

He found the priest—the one who moved through the slums and occasionally worked small miracles with holy water. The priest speaks. I'm sorry. I can't help you.

"Liar!"

Gabriel threw himself at the priest and was subdued at once. A higher-ranking figure arrives late. Takes in the shambles. Clicks his tongue.

"What is all this?"

"Father Jabaniya—"

The priest explained. Jabaniya scolded him immediately.

"You fool. Holy water meant for the poor would have done fine for this child."

"The thing is—yesterday Harut was hurt, and I gave him what was left—"

"Dear God—"

While they spoke, the warmth on Gabriel's back went out.

The heart beats slower.

A very slowly beating heart.

This is certainly hers—

"I'll help."

Jabaniya's voice shifted.

Lady Evangeline Rohanson's voice.

They were words he had wanted all his life. Gabriel had reached for the white, cold hand extended toward him—but when he turned, there was nothing there.

Then, faintly, voices broke through the receding dream.

"Commander? Are you asleep? You've never gone down over paperwork before—"

"He doesn't usually nod off at his desk. Must have been tired today."

"He was just at the Rohanson estate, wasn't he."

"That's right. What do we do? Wake him?"

Familiar voices. Raphaela and Uriel. Through it he saw the inside of his closed eyelids.

"Bishop Marik has summoned Sir Michel—shouldn't someone let the Commander know?"

At the familiar name that followed, Gabriel snapped fully awake. Right. That was the name of the person who had been in that carriage.

"I'm already awake."

"Commander!"

Raphaela greeted him. Bishop Marik's summons. Ordinarily Raphaela would have woken him without hesitation. He must have looked particularly worn down today. The visit to the Rohanson estate. Gabriel smoothed the crease from between his brows.

'So. Why had Bishop Marik summoned Michel?'

"Michel—has he gone ahead?"

"No. He said he had to tell you first, so he's been turning the bishop away and making a show of it."

You keep fine subordinates. Raphaela said it dryly.

Gabriel rose and straightened his clothes. Raphaela patted out the wrinkles and helped him put himself to rights.

"Jabaniya must have told Marik everything about Michel. That old man sided with Marik's faction. Not an ounce of loyalty—the hypocrite."

Jabaniya had been the only bishop present who saw Michel's condition that day. His hand in this summons was all but certain. Sending a spy disguised as a tutor to the Rohanson estate, and now this. Raphaela made a sound. Gabriel stopped him.

"Bishop Jabaniya isn't as heartless a man as you think."

"The old man who plays benevolent in public while looking after his own interests?"

"Raphaela. I owe Bishop Jabaniya a debt."

"In my estimation, what you gave was considerably more. Who does the old man have to thank for becoming bishop, after all."

When Gabriel was young, Jabaniya had helped him escape the slums and grow up in the temple orphanage. Not only that—he had been able to give a proper funeral to the brother he had lived alongside.

Now, with much time passed, some of Jabaniya's goodness might have faded. But to the Gabriel of that time, Jabaniya had done him a kindness he could never forget.

That was only Gabriel's perspective, of course.

Raphaela didn't see it as anything significant. Born a duke's son, to Raphaela goodwill was simply a matter of course. Sending a child to an orphanage rather than supplying him with holy water directly—he thought that the obvious, unremarkable response.

After that, Gabriel had entered the Order while still young. He was now Commander, worked like Jabaniya's instrument ever since—the debt had been repaid long ago.

Whenever Jabaniya came up, their positions always diverged. Rather than quarrel, Gabriel turned his attention to what was urgent.

Gabriel called over Michel, who had been lurking near the Commander's office and watching the door.

"Commander."

"Michel. Did Bishop Marik give you any reason for the summons?"

"No, I heard none. But my best guess is there's only one thing she'd call me for. The painting."

Gabriel agreed. The painting was the only reason to call Michel. What was strange was how much time had passed since the day it burned.

After Father Berga was brought in from the convent where Daisy had been staying, opinion on the painting had reversed completely—the same people who had praised it went silent, as if the praise had never happened. There had also been worry: if the painting's influence kept spreading, more cases like Father Berga's might follow.

And wasn't that precisely why Gabriel had asked Evangeline to be his partner at the ball?

To erase the painting's hold over people, he needed someone with a greater hold still.

Lady Evangeline Rohanson. In practice—those who had stood before the painting day and night at the time had returned to normal after encountering her standing before the burning picture.

One curious thing: nearly none of them retained a clear memory of Evangeline. What they recovered was the vague impression of a remarkably beautiful young noblewoman. Michel was the only one who remembered her distinctly.

The people who had frequented the Grand Temple and seen the painting were mostly nobles and wealthy merchants. A fair number had come specifically because the rumors had spread. It was impossible to track down every person who had been ensnared; there was no choice but to go where they gathered in the greatest numbers. Society. The temple kept a visitors' register; the plan was to attend the banquets those visitors frequented, with Lady Rohanson beside him.

They needed to use her influence. Her peculiar reputation had become the obstacle. For someone who had never once appeared in society, the rumors that surrounded her were extraordinary—so numerous it almost seemed as though someone had been deliberately spreading them.

To attend as many gatherings as possible and lay the worst of those rumors to rest, having Gabriel as her escort was the most effective solution. His public standing was without fault. Traveling with a holy knight would dilute and quiet the gossip surrounding her.

He had worried she might refuse. But after hearing the situation explained, she had accepted the proposal. She had wanted to behave like an ordinary noblewoman of her age—so it hadn't been a bad option for her, either.

Gabriel noticed his thoughts had arrived at Evangeline again.

He caught himself. Michel and Bishop Marik.

Come to think of it—

Gabriel looked at Michel.

Kanna had spoken as if she were the only person who had survived that terrible vision and come through intact. But Gabriel knew one more person who had.

His subordinate, who had become a true zealot.

"Michel."

Kanna had no way of knowing, of course. He had never told Evangeline about Michel's condition. And Michel tended to restrain himself whenever he was in front of the Lady.

"I have something I want to ask."

"Shall I prepare a shovel?"

"I'm not joking. That time—the moment Lady Rohanson splashed water on you."

"Ah. Yes. That time?"

"What did you see?"

Had Michel also seen the red world, the way Gabriel had? Michel put on the expression of someone reliving a fond dream.

"Something white."

Something white. There was only one existence to which "pure white" suited as a descriptor.

Michel went on, dreamily.

"The world was covered in fire, but she alone was pure white. As if already burned down to nothing but ash. Yes—like Donau. Though of course I understand now that Lady Rohanson isn't on the same level as something like that."

What he had seen was different from Gabriel's own vision. From the description alone, it seemed like nothing more than Michel having glimpsed Lady Rohanson through the fire. Evangeline favored white clothing, and on the day she visited the Grand Temple she had also been in a white dress.

"Oh. And I also saw eyes. Not the eye-like pattern painted in the picture—actual eyes. I thought perhaps it was a kind of halo."

This was the first he had heard of it. Eyes. Could those be the same eyes Gabriel had seen?

"Why didn't you mention this before?"

"Because everyone thinks I'm strange. Except you, of course, Commander!"

Strange was not quite it. He had become genuinely different. The original Michel had been extraordinarily shy, quiet, and composed. He had become a completely different person.

So. Michel had also seen those eyes.

Gabriel put the question to Michel.

"Michel... after seeing that—how did you come to the idea of worshipping Lady Rohanson?"

'If you endure, you can be loved. You're jealous of me.'

Kanna's words. The part about enduring to be loved. He was deliberately pushing away the thoughts of the Lady that kept forcing their way back in—

When Michel opened his mouth in a voice like someone entranced.

"Actually, that wasn't what mattered."