APIBAGS Chapter 70

"Ah. If the axe is the problem, I'll put it down right now."

Diess threw the axe to the floor. The blade spun and skidded to Kinder's feet. It could have badly hurt her—but Kinder didn't flinch.

Unable to get a reaction from Kinder, Diess changed targets.

"Hey, you—the Marchioness is here. Why aren't you coming out? If you're not out immediately, you're dismissed. And if dismissal isn't enough, I'll have the guards called in. You'll be handed over on charges of kidnapping and unlawful confinement of the marquess's heir. Make sure you understand that."

Weder looked at Kinder, her eyes unsteady. Laying hands on a noble's heir—that wouldn't end with a fine. And Ryder was already dead. She could be tried as a murderer.

The onlookers had begun murmuring outright—was the young master really dead?

Kinder bit down on her lower lip. What was she supposed to do? She felt cornered—standing at the edge of a cliff. One step forward and she would fall. Or perhaps she had already fallen.

No. Kinder looked for Evangeline. If anyone could cut a way through this, it was Rohanson's lady.

Where was she? Had she bolted ahead on her own and lost her?

Kinder looked around her—and her eyes caught something white at the edge of her vision, and she drew a breath.

Rohanson's lady had been there the entire time. So vivid and present that it was incomprehensible how Kinder had failed to notice her until now. But it wasn't just Kinder. Diess hadn't either. Nor the butler.

"Please—help me. My lady."

Evangeline, who had been observing the scene with the detachment of a third party entirely apart from what was happening, moved at her own unhurried pace, at last, now that Kinder had asked.

With each step Rohanson's lady took, the air changed.

At the first step, the sudden sense of a presence made the room flinch—at the second, the weight of Evangeline Rohanson stripped the words from their mouths—and at the third, the pressure she carried drove the fear deep and stilled every breath.

"Wh—who..."

Only Diess managed to speak, and even that was barely a word, forced out with a stammer.

Rohanson's lady did not spare any attention for a thing like Diess. She looked only at Kinder. Kinder forgot entirely that the situation was dire, and for a moment was seized by a strange exhilaration. She felt like the sole person chosen by a god.

Rohanson's lady stepped directly behind her and drew her in gently. A white glove brushed across her shoulder; hair grazed the back of her neck. Cold breath spilled against her ear, and a temptation like the language of serpents arrived from directly beside her—a whisper that only Kinder could hear. If Kinder had known nothing about Evangeline Rohanson, she might have mistaken that voice for the word of a god.

"Marchioness Toten. Do you want the child restored?"

"Yes. Yes."

"Even if what is restored is not your son? Even if it is someone else who has merely borrowed your son's shell?"

Kinder wanted to turn and demand what that was supposed to mean, but her whole body was held—caught, coiled, as if a serpent had wound itself around her—and she could not move at all.

Hearing those words, Kinder recalled the conversation from the first time they met. Yes—Evangeline had said then that she was a substitute herself. That hadn't been a refusal to help? Then Ryder—my son—he really has gone, forever? That terribly, that miserably, that small?

"The choice belongs entirely to you. Accept the child's death officially and allow yourself to grieve. Or let what is alive do the work of appearing alive—on the surface, at least."

What Kinder wanted was for Ryder to be brought back. But just as Evangeline had forewarned—there was no such thing as a perfect solution.

Ryder's last words circled in her head.

'Allow me at least to leave something behind, in case this is my end.'

'Please protect the marquessate after I'm gone, Mother.'

Accept the farewell to her son, or accept the thing that would perform being her son on the outside. If Kinder had to choose between them, it would be the latter. Kinder had loved Ryder enormously. Enough that she could use her son's body in order to honor his last words. That was the love Kinder had for him—selfish love, exactly that.

'You love me, don't you, Mother?'

Selfish love belonged to love. The genuine kind.

"Yes. Even so—that's all right."

In the end, Kinder let the consent out.

"Melek."

"Yes, my lady."

Evangeline called the blindfolded coachman. Kinder could not understand why the coachman had come inside the house at all.

The two murmured something to each other, and before Kinder could even question it, the coachman dissolved into black smoke that swam through the air until it touched Ryder.

The smoke seeped in—and since every eye in the room had been on Rohanson's lady, the only person who saw it was Kinder.

"The young master moved!"

From somewhere in the crowd, a maid cried out. Kinder recognized the voice as belonging to one of Rohanson's lady's own.

The people turned their eyes from Evangeline and looked at Ryder. And as the voice had said—the child who had not moved at all scrunched his face. He worked his cheek like a child fussing in sleep, and then Ryder's eyes snapped open.

Someone who had been looking at him pressed a hand over their mouth.

Kinder did the same. She had asked for this. She had chosen it. The moment she saw the stranger that had settled inside her son's body, nausea rose in her.

Ryder's hand twitched.

"Wh—what is this."

Of all of them, the most frightened was naturally Weder, who had been holding Ryder in her arms the entire time. The body she had been clutching—dead—had just moved against her.

"Ah, that does look a bit terrifying."

Henna, who had experienced something rather similar at Evangeline's funeral, nodded with genuine understanding.

Genuinely shocking. I had followed Marchioness Toten because she asked, but I hadn't thought the situation would be this serious. It wasn't just a succession dispute—there was Diess, the late marquis's younger brother, holding an axe and trying to get his hands on a child.

A single maid had hidden herself inside the room, holding the boy in her arms and protecting him. The butler, the nanny, everyone else in the estate hadn't moved to stop the marquis's brother even once. No one to rely on inside the household—that was why Lady Toten had asked an outsider, a third party, namely me, for help.

"Now that you've returned, that resolves it, surely? You must be tired from the journey. Go in and rest."

"Of course. But, sister-in-law—isn't this strange? With all this commotion, my nephew is sleeping so deeply he hasn't even blinked. He sleeps as if dead, doesn't he?"

"Didn't I tell you? Five days of fever and he's finally sleeping properly. He'd be too exhausted to hear anything."

Diess kept goading Lady Toten. She tried to talk him down, but he wasn't the kind who responded to that. Axe on his shoulder, menacing, demanding to see the child's condition.

"All this, over a dead child," Jelly said, and clicked his tongue.

What? Who's already dead? Ryder?

"Sir Jelly, what are you saying?"

Henna asked, her voice unsteady. That's what I want to know.

"Can't you tell? No breathing sounds. Ah—you can't hear that? Then look. Skin's pale, hands have no strength in them, but the jaw and neck are stiff."

I looked quickly toward the inside of the shattered door. Ryder was wrapped in sheets—I couldn't confirm what Jelly was saying clearly enough. The only thing visible from here was his color. The child's complexion was unnaturally pale. That wasn't just illness. Henna went white and then looked anxiously at Lady Toten.

"The Marchioness..."

Henna's murmur was buried under a louder voice.

"Open the door for me. Why won't you check on him? Doesn't the Marchioness worry about her own son? Come inside with me and let's look."

Diess kept scratching at Lady Toten's composure. Even with all that, Lady Toten didn't say a single word about going in personally to confirm whether Ryder was unharmed.

"Lady Toten already knows the child is gone."

Henna exhaled. I thought so too. Lady Toten wasn't going along with Diess's demands because she already knew Ryder was dead. As I'd been told before arriving here, if Ryder died, the right of succession would pass not to Lady Toten but to Diess.

She was fighting to stop that from happening.

"That's why she came looking for you in the first place. She was asking you to bring a dead child back. There's no one else in the whole world who's come back from the dead except you, Master."

So that was why she came to me. So that's what Lady Toten meant when she asked if I remembered what I'd said. When we first met, I'd been caught out by that grandfather butler, and instead of comfort I'd made some excuse about there being no method—something along those lines.

"Hey. The Marchioness is here and you're not coming out? If you don't come out now, you're dismissed. And if dismissal isn't enough, I'll call the guards. You'll be handed over for kidnapping and unlawfully detaining the heir. Remember that."

In the meantime, Diess had shifted his threats. He was trying to intimidate the maid—lower-status, easier to browbeat.

"Please help me... Your Ladyship."

Lady Toten looked around anxiously. She found me, and she reached out her hand—like someone standing at a cliff's edge. Anyone else might have pulled her back to safety from that edge. I wasn't anyone else. I had no choice but to put my hands to her back and push her forward.

"Marchioness Toten. Do you want the child brought back?"

"Yes... yes."

"Even if what comes back isn't your son? Even if it's someone else borrowing the shell of your son?"

Just like me, for instance. Lady Toten wrestled with the question, then clenched her jaw and answered.

"Yes. Even so."

She can't bring the dead child back, but she can protect the marquessate. Between losing everything and protecting even one thing—Lady Toten had chosen the latter. Lady Toten had pushed her grief aside and steeled herself, so I had no choice but to help her, even if the best I could do was a second-best solution.

"Jelly—go and get Melek."