APIBAGS Chapter 77

Kinder accompanied Evangeline on this circuit again and again, introducing her to one group after another. After the fifth round, Evangeline suggested they rest.

Kinder realized she had smiled when Evangeline said it—and caught herself with a jolt.

'How… how could I smile. On the day my son died?'

She felt monstrous to herself. She ran her fingers over the crystal flower, trying to quiet the anxiety.

"Are you tired as well, Lady Toten?"

"Yes... I suppose I am."

Evangeline noticed Kinder's unease and flagged down a passing maid to take up two wine glasses. She took one herself, pressed the other into Kinder's hand, clinked them together without ceremony, and looked at her pointedly. Kinder hesitated, then touched the glass to her lips. A rich fruit scent gave way to a dry, astringent finish. She didn't particularly enjoy wine, so the taste struck her as somewhat peculiar.

"A little better after the wine, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes. I can breathe a little more easily."

Nonetheless, with something finally in her system, she felt marginally steadier. The heart that had been hammering like something balanced at a cliff's edge calmed, slightly.

Kinder returned her empty glass to a passing maid. Oddly, this maid—unlike the rest of the staff—had a scarf drawn up over the lower half of her face. When Kinder looked at her curiously, the maid made an X over her covered mouth with two fingers: clearly indicating she could not speak. She seemed to be covering her mouth deliberately, as a signal. Among all the servants in the banquet hall, this maid alone wore her scarf that way.

The maid took the returned glass and resumed her swift rounds.

My feet are killing me. Throat hurts. Face muscles aching from smiling through all of it. They said Lady Toten's reputation was so remarkable that Gabriel invited her as a chaperone—apparently, it wasn't an exaggeration. Every person we passed knew her. Like a machine, I kept bowing.

I’m not even Evangeline. I've said the name so many times I'm approaching full Gestalt collapse.

Did Gabriel run off on purpose knowing it'd be like this? ...No, okay, he did go to work. But he said he'd be back soon—so when is soon?!

"Shall we rest a moment?" she said aloud, because the alternative was saying all of that out loud, and she had enough self-possession left to prevent that.

"You as well, Lady Toten?"

Looking closer, it wasn't just me—Lady Toten was exhausted too. She'd come to a banquet on the day her son died, carrying the secret that he had died, performing normalcy with every gesture—because if anyone found out, the marquessate would fall. The fatigue on her was a different kind entirely.

A clear conscience wouldn't survive this in a single evening. Wine, then.

Being sober for this would be rough. A servant happened to be circulating nearby, so I grabbed two glasses without ceremony, handed one to Lady Toten, made a show of clinking them, and drank. Legal doping. Obviously.

The wine was rich and fruity at first, with a sharp acidity underneath. I didn't particularly enjoy wine as a rule, but the taste felt somewhat beside the point tonight.

Lady Toten accepted a sip. The cliff-edge galloping of her heartbeat seemed to ease, just slightly.

She handed her empty glass back to a passing servant—a young woman with a scarf pulled up over the lower half of her face, unlike any of the other servants in the hall. She looked at Kinder when Kinder glanced her way and made a small gesture: two fingers crossed over her lips. Can't speak. The scarf is deliberate.

Among all the servants in the banquet hall, this maid alone had her face covered that way.

The maid accepted the glass and moved briskly on.

After returning my empty glass, I sent the maid off with a thank-you. Apparently if you drain it, they collect it on the spot. Practical. The serving maid gave me a slightly strange look.

What, never seen someone down a glass of wine before? Makes sense. You probably haven’t.

"What a lovely scarf."

When at a loss, compliment something. Not that the maid seemed to think so. The girl's expression had briefly, sharply, contracted—before she smoothed it back, gave a small bow, and was gone. Even the servants here walked beautifully.

"She didn't seem very pleased with the compliment."

A villainess's compliment isn't welcome either, apparently. That stings a little….

"I'd like to hear one."

A coy voice, and a stranger's face appeared suddenly in front of me.

Curling gold hair caught the chandelier light and shimmered as it fell. When our eyes met, the corners of his eyes and cheeks flushed faintly and his eyes curved into a smile.

Wow. Wow. That’s insane, right? Is this even a human face?

I'd thought Oratório was handsome—but he didn't even clear the bar for comparison. The attendant's livery said imperial palace. That a palace servant could exist like this struck me as simply unreasonable.

"Please—praise me as much as you like."

Ah, yes, you're very handsome. I nearly let that slip. Rather than say something embarrassing, I just smiled back. The handsome attendant waited for a compliment and, receiving none, dropped his eyes at the corners in visible disappointment.

"You don't like what you see?"

Absolutely not. This was objectively beyond the reach of personal preference.

"I do."

The concise answer seemed to satisfy him; he lit up.

"What a relief." He tilted his head. "You'll drink this one too, won't you, Lady Evangeline?"

I just one-shotted that. But when I came back to myself there was already another glass in my hand.

Face-struck. So this is what it does, noted.

The attendant watched me take a sip with an expression of quiet satisfaction, then turned and walked away as if he had accomplished precisely what he came to do.

Two glasses in, a pleasant buzz was starting to settle. I was idly people-watching when, out of nowhere, I caught the Count's eye. Scowling heavily, he was repeatedly jabbing his finger toward where Duke Hosaquin stood.

Sir. I know. I'm getting there.

He wasn't wrong about the timing, actually. The crowd around the Duke had thinned; this was as good a moment as any.

"Lady Toten, shall we pay my grandfather a visit now?"

Lady Toten agreed.

Lady Toten had suggested going in through Viscount Whikel, who was currently attached to the Duke's side—notorious for being both oblivious and socially aggressive, the sort who would attach himself to anyone interesting regardless of the awkwardness. She predicted that simply passing nearby would be enough to draw him over.

"My goodness, Lady Toten! It's been an age!"

Wow, unreal. Just as Lady Toten predicted, the man had intercepted us before we'd even slowed our pace, striking up a conversation with cheerful energy. It wasn’t that he didn’t know about the tension between the Duke and me—he simply decided that flaunting an acquaintance with the banquet's most talked-about guests outweighed any need to read the room. In a way, I had to respect it.

Several paces away, Duke Hosaquin was staring with a glare that could strip paint. If Viscount Whikel felt that gaze—which he demonstrably did not—he showed no sign of it.

"I did send you an invitation last week, Lady Toten, but I never heard back—that's a bit of a pity, isn't it!"

"Oh, I don't recall receiving it—it must have been a slip by my butler. I would certainly have responded if I'd seen it. I'll make sure to speak with him when I'm back. Please forgive the lapse."

"Ha! Lady Toten threatening to scold her butler! You've developed quite the sense of humor in the meantime!"

That's not a joke...that butler is currently confined to the basement.

"I owe it entirely to the company I've been keeping. Ah—may I introduce you? This is Lady Rohanson, whom I'm chaperoning tonight."

"A pleasure to meet—"

Shatter.

The sound of shattering glass cut across my greeting before I could finish. The source was obvious. His face flushed bright scarlet, Duke Hosaquin gritted his teeth, staring at me—eyes brimming with fury.

He really, truly hates me. Oh, Count... You never warned me the difficulty would be this high...

The wine glass breaking was the Duke's, thrown to the floor. Servants slipped in discreetly to clear away the shards. Watching them, I couldn't help but think of our own estate's staff—it seems Evangeline's terrible personality was inherited directly from her grandfather.

"Oh! The two of you are grandfather and granddaughter, aren't you!"

There it is.

Viscount Whikel wasn't merely bad at reading the room—he'd consumed whatever awareness he had, borrowed against the remainder, and was currently operating at a deficit.

He'd been grinning pleasantly through all of this, and only Duke Hosaquin's absolutely leveling glare seemed to penetrate. Making a strangled sound, he hiccupped once and fled.

"Ah—I think I may have—had rather too much wine—please excuse me—"

Silencing a man with nothing but a look—well. He was a villainess's grandfather through and through.

Whikel was gone, but the goal was met regardless. The Count only needed to see me approach the Duke; that was the arrangement.

Now came the difficult part. Mishandle this and the family-regret-story route kicks in—Duke Hosaquin might take a liking to Kanna as a surrogate for the granddaughter she genuinely resembles, and then the inheritance slides sideways entirely. I need to be careful.

In a proper family-regret story, what works is showing up with no ulterior motive, playing the affectionate child smiling openly with nothing held back, and thawing the estranged elder by sheer sincerity. So I'll do the opposite—make the calculation outrageously obvious, and don't smile openly.

"Grandfather. We haven't met before, have we."

It was more statement than question. They hadn't—the Countess had cut all contact at marriage. And even if that weren't true, there was always the memory loss to lean on.

"Who are you calling your grandfather!"

"Does Your Grace no longer consider my mother your daughter?"

That landed. She could see it. The Duke was the exact type she'd predicted—a patriarch built from pride and frost, who had wanted to be kind to his daughter and instead spent years delivering only storms, leaving himself with nothing but regret and unfinished business. He flinched inward and went quiet.

"I'm sorry. She always missed you terribly."

"...Amaranth did?"

There. A hairline crack. The Duke turned the full weight of his scrutiny onto her face—studying it. The Count had mentioned that Evangeline bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Countess. She couldn't afford to let that tilt toward sentiment. Not yet.

"Yes. She said married life was hard, that she wanted to run away, but that her father who had severed ties with her would never take her back—and that she missed you, lonely and sad, every day."

I kept my voice low enough for only us to hear. It was the kind of thing you say to hack a man apart—a man who'd lost his daughter—but I hadn't lied. And honestly, part of me wanted to tear into him. Treat a daughter like a stranger the moment she marries out, why don't you. You could have looked after her anyway. From what the Countess's diary showed, the loneliness of those years was real and vivid.

"Why did you do it? Were you angry that she wouldn't listen? Did it feel unforgivable—that she ran away with a man you hadn't approved of, and married him without your blessing? Was that why you never once came to her, not even when she was dying?"

"You—you dare—"

Cornered, Duke Hosaquin turned his glare on me with ferocity. He raged as though lava were boiling up inside him—so I fanned the coals diligently.

"Yes. I am Evangeline Rohanson, your granddaughter."

And when his anger breached its limit, Duke Hosaquin's reason shattered. He seized a wine glass left on a nearby table by the servants clearing away the earlier shards—

This isn't a morning drama—is he actually going to throw that? Of all days, my debutante. Of all colors, white.

I was already stepping back, trying to catch at least a little less of it, when my body was pulled suddenly backward and I fell into someone's arms. A familiar scent. A familiar warmth. I glanced up—and found blue eyes, peculiarly still. Outside the windows night had already settled, but within those eyes alone it was still the bright light of midday.

He had put himself between me and the glass. Red water dripped, drop by drop, from the ends of his black hair.

Red—a color entirely wrong on Gabriel, who was nothing but blue, blue to overflowing.

"Sir Gabriel."

"Yes, my lady. As promised—I have returned before the first dance."

Gabriel curved the corners of his eyes in a smile.