MB Chapter 29

Evening was coming on when Entzi Bethelgius returned to the mansion.

As he passed through the household staff assembled to receive him, he found himself looking, out of habit, for Goiyo's face among them—but the face he'd grown accustomed to seeing was not there today.

Lukurue approached with an expression that was, somehow, faintly amused, and told him about the day's events, and that Goiyo had fallen asleep in the afternoon.

'She's under no obligation to come out and greet me.'

He told himself this, and yet the hollowness remained. It hadn't been so very long since the wedding—and still, without quite noticing when it happened, he'd grown used to it.

Perhaps because there was no one else who welcomed him home in any way that was not purely formal.

Without stopping to change his clothes, Entzi crossed the entrance hall and climbed the stairs toward Goiyo's room.

The faint sense of her presence from beyond the door loosened his expression before he was aware of it. He knocked twice—not softly—but no answer came from inside. She was sleeping deeply, then.

He knocked once more, as courtesy required, and when that too went unanswered, he simply opened the door.

True to the butler's word, Goiyo was leaning against the sofa with her eyes closed. She hadn't meant to sleep, it seemed—a quill pen was balanced precariously between her slender fingers, as if she'd drifted off mid-sentence.

The maid wouldn't have touched it, for fear of waking her mistress. Watching the steady rise and fall of those narrow shoulders, Entzi smiled and reached out to ease the quill free, setting it on the table.

He stretched a hand out to wake her—and stopped.

A pale face. Alabaster pale. The dark lashes curved in sleep, laying fine shadows along her cheekbones. Her lips were closed and the color had bled out of them entirely.

Something cold moved through his chest. The emptied cheeks, the lips faded to almost nothing—it was only because she wore no powder, he told himself. But she lay so absolutely still, without the faintest tremor of movement, and he could not shake the thought that she might never wake. That this stillness was not temporary. That this was how she would look, always.

The unnameable dread caught his breath and held it. When he finally managed to speak, his voice came out barely above a whisper.

"Goiyo...?"

Even he could tell how small it was. Small enough that someone half asleep might not catch it at all.

But before he could call her name a second time, her eyelids opened—as though the sound had reached her through something—and clear eyes reflected his face back at him.

"You're back."

The moment that sleep-thickened voice reached him, the breath he'd been holding slipped out at last.

He looked at her drowsy, unfocused eyes and smiled, thinly.

She wasn't ill. There had been no reason for such thoughts. And yet the cold had settled so completely—now that warmth was threading back through, the foolishness of what he'd imagined made him oddly self-conscious.

"You look tired."

"A little."

When did I fall asleep? She hid a small yawn behind her palm and pushed herself upright.

Entzi folded himself down beside her, legs bent. Her hair had come loose and was falling across her face; he reached over and tucked it behind her ear. A small gesture—Goiyo was well past remarking on it.

"I heard you had Dame Eliom here today."

"Yes. After you left for the imperial palace, I finally made up my mind about the hunting competition. I didn't have anyone obvious to ask for help, so I thought I'd try."

"And was it helpful?"

Even as he said it, the words came out wrong—a sharper edge than he'd intended. He tried once more.

"I hope it was some use."

Only the degree of sarcasm had changed.

This is what comes of careless speech. Goiyo didn't seem to take offense, but her husband conducted a quiet internal reckoning on his own habits.

"She lent me some books, at least. I'll have to return them in three weeks."

He followed her gaze. Two volumes sat on the table, exactly as described. Both of them looked capable of causing serious injury if put to that purpose.

That introductory texts on magic tended toward the formidable was something Entzi knew perfectly well—but the memory of Goiyo's face going pale at the mere mention of magical theory made a smile surface in spite of himself.

"Is that why you looked unwell?"

"...What do you mean?"

"I only mean that this particular discipline prefers to make everything as difficult as possible to explain. Independent study is no simple matter."

The skilled deflection, its true meaning neatly buried beneath the surface, earned a nod from Goiyo.

"There's no one nearby who works with spirits, so I'll have to use the books as my teacher. Though Lord Eliom helped quite a bit—tried to help quite a bit. She knows a surprising amount of incidental detail."

"I don't believe I ever said I couldn't summon spirits."

"You can?"

"Which is to say—I was about to tell you that I cannot."

'This man.'

He watched the light go flat in her eyes as they narrowed, and his smile flickered.

He was, in truth, unable to summon spirits. Had he attempted it during the most volatile period of his life, perhaps it might have been possible—but Entzi had no interest in reading the label on those particular emotions. He had never needed to borrow a spirit's strength, and in any case he had never tried.

That said, the absence of anyone nearby with such ability was not strictly accurate. There was someone—someone Entzi regarded without warmth, and therefore had not introduced on Goiyo's first day at the mansion—who was unlikely to cause his wife any harm. A person whose presence made him privately uncomfortable, but who could be introduced if it proved necessary.

A few well-placed warnings in advance, and the arrangement would be tolerable.

"If I were to help you—what would you give in return?"

"...There's nothing you're without that I could give you."

Goiyo's answer came in a slightly disgruntled tone.

"And rather than setting conditions, shouldn't you simply be cooperating with me? You're the one who asked me to catch a rabbit."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said I should catch you a rabbit."

He blinked, once, twice—then the laugh came, helpless and genuine, and would not quite stop.

He'd said it as a joke. Evidently his wife had taken it entirely to heart. He pressed his lips together but laughter kept leaking out in unsteady bursts, refusing to settle.

"I see. Since you've promised to catch me a rabbit, expecting anything further would be rather ungracious."

"Stop laughing."

"Although—did I not also promise to give you a handkerchief in return?"

"I'll catch the rabbit myself, but the handkerchief you'd be buying."

"I intend to make it myself."

'Can he actually do that?'

She considered the possibility that he'd have it commissioned somewhere and then claim it as his own work—but, strangely, Entzi had never yet told her an outright lie. She set the suspicion aside.

"What is it you want?" she asked.

"Not just yet. I'll tell you in due time."

The smile he wore as he said it was the most suspicious she'd seen on his face, but she didn't press. There was no contract between them; if it came to it, she could simply refuse.

Besides, Entzi knew perfectly well how limited her capacity to give was.

"Now that I think of it—Dame Eliom had better not come around for the time being."

"Dame Eliom—Razine?"

"The person I'd like to help you has something of an aversion to strangers."

"Wortien can only be summoned for a short time. They couldn't help for long in any case. If we arranged times that don't overlap—"

"The person I'd like to help you has quite a pronounced aversion to strangers."

He had changed only a single modifier, and followed it with an elaboration delivered in exaggerated tones.

"The mere shadow of an unfamiliar person brushing past would likely be intolerable."

"You don't like Lord Eliom?"

"The person I'd like to help you appears to feel that way, yes."

Goiyo held his gaze, reading the gray eyes.

Now that she thought of it, his expression when Razine had been brought into the mansion had not been easy. A discomfort with unnecessary visitors—natural enough, perhaps. He occupied a delicate political position, and the plans he kept and the secrets he held were not ordinary things.

The fact that his hidden purpose was the destruction of House Rubiette made all of this contradictory in a particular way, but Goiyo could trace the logic of his thinking with reasonable composure.

It was possible because she felt no attachment to Rubiette. It was possible because she had already accepted her own death.

'I was careless.'

Entzi had been kinder since the wedding than she had expected, and that ease had allowed something in her to loosen. But for his pleasant mask to hold as long as it needed to, she too would have to keep what she was supposed to keep.

She gathered the parts of herself that had begun to soften and pressed them back into something firm, then asked, clearly, for confirmation.

"If my bringing people to the mansion troubles you, please say so directly. This is your home, after all."

"That isn't—" He paused. "That isn't what I meant. It isn't only mine. Do as you like."

But the expression on Entzi's face was, unexpectedly, one of discomfort. She had seen him flustered before, but rarely—and on every occasion, it had happened only when she had been the one to initiate contact.

If this had been something he wanted, he would have seized on it the moment she offered and wrapped it in something polished. The look on his face suggested otherwise.

'So it isn't about having people here—it's something to do with Razine Eliom specifically?'

While Goiyo worked quietly through his meaning, Entzi composed himself and offered an apology in a subdued voice.

"I'm sorry for making unnecessary trouble. That wasn't my intention."

"Is there some uncomfortable history between you and Lord Eliom—or, rather, the Elioms?"

"...I can't say with certainty, but there is a difficult aspect to it. I'm concerned it may come to cause you some harm."

To say more about Count Eliom would have meant tracing the thread all the way back to the circumstances of his own birth.

He could hardly recount what had been tangled around his mother, and then suggest that Razine Eliom might have a separate agenda of her own. That was not a story he was able to tell.

"Then I'll do that."

Goiyo accepted what he offered without asking for anything more.

It was a relief—and yet not entirely comfortable. He couldn't have answered even if she had pressed, and still.

"She was simply the only person I could find who knew anything about spirits. There's no particular attachment."

"I see."

No particular attachment was aimed at Razine Eliom—but Entzi understood it as applying to himself as well.

It was plainly visible: even as Goiyo spoke to him easily and responded to his kindnesses with something approaching ease, she was drawing a line.

A sensible approach. The one failing to be rational was himself—growing unnecessarily fond, on his side of things.

Entzi Bethelgius turned the thought over in his mind. Then he said the only thing that was available to him at present.

"If I find I've misjudged her, I'll tell you at once."

There was an ache in his chest, though he could not quite account for it.

By the following morning, Goiyo had been introduced to a teacher.

He was a man who looked like a boy—ashen gold hair, features that belonged to a younger face—and Entzi explained that he only appeared this way because of mixed blood; his actual age was considerably greater.

Mixed blood. Remarkable—but hardly something to let show. With practiced ease, Goiyo composed her expression and offered her greeting first.

"I'm Goiyo Bethelgius. It's lovely to meet you."

"How do you do. I am Ekser Prebesk, in service to the Marquess Bethelgius. Please call me Ekser."

She had never seen this person in the mansion before, but she found she had no particular questions about it. Given the nature of Entzi Bethelgius's work, she had long since assumed there were many people she simply didn't know.