The Mansion Awaits Spring
Chapter 53
Miller stared at him for a moment before speaking with a thin smile.
“I suppose a witch is truly a witch, seeing you act like this.”
“…….”
“Well, perhaps it isn’t so bad after all.”
Miller patted Fezin on the arm and continued.
“Enjoy yourself as much as you like while the time is right. I won’t stop you from doing that much. But you know as well as I do that it can’t go any further than that, don’t you?”
Miller spoke in a soothing tone.
“I just hope you bring your future bride to us soon. Before we have to go through the trouble of finding one for you ourselves.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“If I leave it to you, I’m afraid I’ll never see a nephew… Spend some time playing with your nieces and nephews while you’re at it.”
“No. Every last one of them is incredibly rude.”
“I gave birth to them myself, so I’m quite curious why they took after you.”
“Hyung raised them, and you raised me, so it must be a problem with the one who raised us.”
To an outsider, their bickering might look like a sign of trouble between the brothers, but Heidi knew that deep down, the two of them considered each other their only family in the world.
That was why, even when she worried about Fezin’s interest in April, she was able to put her mind at ease.
A short while later, a memorial procession led by Fezin set out into the city center.
With the Grand Duchy Police standing guard, the Grand Duke couple visited places where victims had been lost to the fog, offering condolence funds.
Fezin also handed over funds, keenly feeling the weight of the fact that he should have prevented the deaths from occurring within the fog.
He looked down at two children peering out from behind an elderly woman as she accepted the money he offered. Their eyes, red from long bouts of crying, were now clouded with resignation.
He was told they had lost their mother—who had been raising them alone—to this latest fog.
The maternal grandmother, now tasked with raising her stranded grandchildren, clutched the thick envelope of funds and spoke in a weary voice.
“Since I’ve received this, I suppose I have no choice but to raise them.”
Fezin closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly and bowed his head.
“I failed to fulfill my responsibility. I am sorry.”
A dark, surging emotion seemed to well up from deep within him.
What was he even doing right now?
Pretending to know nothing when he knew everything.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, one of the two children, who had been clinging to their grandmother and eyeing the outsider warily, stepped forward and shoved Fezin with all his might.
Fezin quickly caught the boy’s arms as he nearly stumbled back from the force of his own push.
The grandmother, startled, grabbed the boy. The boy glared at Fezin and asked his grandmother.
“Is it because of that policeman that Mom couldn’t come back?”
“It’s not like that. This officer did his best.”
“No! How is it his best when people died?!”
The boy’s shout rang out loudly.
“If I were a policeman, my mom would have come home!”
Fezin frowned and signaled the other officers, who were moving to restrain the boy, to back off. He then looked at the boy, who appeared to be about ten years old.
He offered a reassuring smile to the grandmother, who was terrified of him—a member of the Grand Ducal family and a high-ranking police official—and then took the angry boy by the arms to stand him in front of him. He held the child’s gaze for a long time.
Having lost his own parents at a young age, Fezin felt a sense of guilt toward the boy. At the same time, he saw a reflection of his younger self.
If it hadn’t been for his brother, Miller, he thought he would have lived his life recklessly, letting himself go to ruin.
The reason he had decided to become a policeman was the same as this boy’s.
Back then, the Grand Duchy did not have sufficient police power. It was only after he moved to the Empire that he clearly understood this was due to the Empire’s interference.
Fezin spoke.
“That’s why I became a policeman, too. Because I thought if I were one, my parents would have come home.”
“…….”
“But it would be better to have a policeman like you than one like me. Because you are brave.”
“Are you… not brave, Hyung?”
“No, not at all.”
Fezin smoothed the boy’s messy hair with his hand as he continued.
“I didn’t become the person I wanted to be.”
“…….”
“You become the person you want to be. I’ll support you.”
With that, Fezin stood up.
Devin Meyer—the head of the Grand Duchy Police, the Commissioner, and the maternal uncle of both Fezin and Miller—spoke to him.
“It is good to treat the citizens in such a manner.”
At Devin’s words, Fezin turned to look at him.
Fezin found it hard to believe that he, the Police Commissioner, had kept the truth hidden for such a long time.
Devin looked satisfied, as if he had finally found someone to share a burden he had kept hidden in his heart for ages.
However, Fezin had no intention of sharing that burden.
It was only when he was appointed as the Director of the Special Investigation Headquarters that he first learned the truth: the Grand Duchy Police had known the cause of the fog for years and had kept it hidden all that time.
The lies that had sustained the Right Island for the past several years were piled up before him.
He couldn’t see the answer to what should be removed or what should be braced. It was a tower that felt as though it would collapse the moment he touched it.
* * *
The last day of the year.
Hannah took a deep breath.
Even while she was out at the market in the capital with Fred on an errand for Bauman, she was preoccupied with her studies.
Hannah liked running around, and Fred liked drawing. Neither of them had much interest in studying.
Still, under April’s stern nagging, the two children had learned their letters. Between the two, Fred, who spent more time sitting still, was faster at reading.
Tonight, when the two of them returned home, they were scheduled for a final exam: reading a book April had given them.
Hannah was looking anxious when she spotted a newspaper left behind by a man who had just finished having his boots shined and ran toward it.
The moment she picked it up, a newspaper boy ran over and held out his hand.
“Hand it over, that’s mine. Or buy it.”
“Someone already paid for this.”
“It’s mine!”
The boy, who was a couple of years older than Hannah and Fred, yanked the newspaper with all his might, causing Hannah, who was holding it with one hand, to fall to the ground.
Seeing this, a large merchant watching from a distance walked over.
“Why are you brats fighting in front of someone’s shop?”
He then grabbed both the newspaper boy and Hannah by the scruff of their necks with his hands.
Terrified, Fred shouted frantically.
“W-we work for the Lunos family!”
“Lunos?”
At those words, the merchant looked between the two children and released Hannah’s neck. He then shoved the newspaper they had been fighting over into Hannah’s hand and spoke.
“Take it and go.”
Hannah clutched the newspaper tight, while the newspaper boy struggled until the merchant tossed him aside, sending him flying against a wall.
The merchant kicked the boy in the stomach, spat, and returned to his shop.
Fearing the boy might come back for revenge, Hannah tucked the newspaper into her waistband, grabbed Fred’s hand, and started running.
The snow was frozen over, and people at the market were moving about on sleds or skates.
Hannah ran blindly over the slippery road until she could no longer see the boy through the crowd, then stopped.
The place where they stopped was a residential area where the middle class lived.
Hannah flinched and looked up at the sound of a slap coming through an open window. On the second floor of a mansion, a girl about Hannah’s age was crying, covering her face where she had been hit with both hands.
Since she had been kicked out of the factory, her next step would have been to knock on doors in residential areas like this to find work.
It was only natural that the servants of noble families, who had received professional training, were prideful. Those were not places where just anyone could work, and the treatment was correspondingly good.
Maids in private homes were provided with room and board instead of wages and didn't have a single day off all year. There was no need to even mention the treatment Hannah, who was missing a hand, would receive.
Hannah clutched the newspaper tightly and spoke.
“If I keep failing to read, will the Young Lady kick me out?”
At Hannah’s question, Fred shook his head vigorously with startled eyes.
“There’s no way. She said she’d send us to school.”
“What if I’m not smart enough to go to school?”
“That… I don’t know.”
There wouldn’t be another chance like this. There was no way such luck would ever follow her again in her life…….
Hannah set the newspaper down and unfolded it with trembling hands.
She had nearly memorized the book she practiced with every day, so she was essentially reciting from memory rather than truly reading. This newspaper, however, was made up of entirely new sentences.
Hannah began to read the newspaper haltingly.
“Unexpected… slump… Unexpected? Slump? Expressing… grievances… over the granting of player draft rights….”
Unexpected, slump, draft rights, grievances, expressing….
Since it was an article about ice hockey, she had thought it would be relatively easy after seeing the photo, but from the very first sentence, there wasn’t a single word Hannah had studied so far.
Hannah turned pale at the realization that she couldn’t read the newspaper at all.
“I can’t read it…. What do I do?”
As the usually spunky Hannah began to tear up, even Fred’s face turned white as a sheet. Meanwhile, the sound of another slap and the sobbing of the young maid continued to drift through the open window.
