“Milady… you’re gone…”
“I had an awful dream, so I woke up. Did you wake up too, Hannah?”
“Yes…”
The lantern flickered, washing Hannah’s face in faint amber light as she gave that slow reply. Lilietta knitted her brow. Something was wrong. Hannah’s gaze hung empty, unfocused, staring straight through her.
“If you’re frightened… together… let’s…”
“Together? Will you sleep in my room?”
Lilietta brightened and caught Hannah’s cuff. But the older girl shook her head.
“No… together. Let’s… together…”
“Hannah?”
“Together… ugh…”
Hannah suddenly seized her temples with both hands, letting out a sharp groan. When she lifted her face once more, the glazed trance was gone, replaced by an unnaturally radiant beam.
“Let’s go see the stars, Milady!”
“The stars? Right now?”
“I couldn’t fall back asleep either, so I wondered what we might do. Clear nights like this don’t come often, and I thought… why not look at the stars? It would be so much better if we went together, Milady. That’s why I slipped away to fetch you.”
“Just you and me?”
“I’ve already prepared warm milk and biscuits by the shore. There’s a blanket as well, and a picture book about the constellations. Didn’t your tutor teach you about the night sky just the other day? Wouldn’t you love to see them yourself? If we sit out there, share something warm, and watch the sky, you’ll fall asleep easily once we’re done.”
Hannah smiled warmly, her voice full of persuasion.
Lilietta had indeed studied the constellations recently, and the lure of seeing them firsthand was irresistible. Still unsettled by her nightmare, the thought of creeping outside to share sweets under the night sky with another child sparked quiet excitement.
“All right!”
Lilietta smiled. Sheltered beneath endless care and affection, suspicion was a concept entirely foreign to her.
She did not ask how Hannah, a trainee barred from the inner halls, had reached the private children’s quarters.
She did not ask how Hannah, barely a month into service and not yet appointed as her companion, knew what her tutor had covered in her private lessons.
She never wondered how a mere maid-in-training could have slipped out to the lakeside in the woods to lay such preparations.
Nor did she grasp the grave danger of leading a ten-year-old highborn daughter past the castle gates under cover of darkness.
Lilietta was simply relieved not to spend another moment alone in the bed where the terror had found her. She was merely happy to share a secret adventure with a friend.
Holding Hannah’s hand, the young girl stole out of the castle. Though guards walked their rounds and staff maintained their late shifts, the two did not encounter a living soul. Only after they passed the rear gardens and stepped beneath the birch canopy did Lilietta feel the first creeping edge of unease.
“Hannah, slow down. You’re going too fast…”
Twelve and robust, Hannah stood nearly a head taller than the frail, sickly ten-year-old trailing her.
Dread tightened in Lilietta’s chest. When she dragged her feet, Hannah stopped and looked back. Her expression had gone completely still, like painted porcelain.
“…Hannah?”
“Yes, Milady?”
Her lips curved into a grin, but not a flicker of warmth reached her eyes. A cold shudder ran down Lilietta’s spine. Before she could think, her feet carried her backward.
“Where are you going? The lake is over here.”
Hannah caught Lilietta’s wrist and yanked hard. Lilietta dug her heels into the dirt, fighting the pull.
“N-no, I don’t want to go anymore.”
“You don’t?”
“I want to go back. I’m sorry, Hannah. I think I’ll just sleep in my bed…”
“You cannot do that.”
The rehearsed smile vanished, leaving a cold, hollow mask. Then, with unnatural force, Hannah hauled Lilietta toward her.
“Come here.”
The tone matched the terrible voice from her nightmare. Blind panic seizing her, Lilietta shrieked and pulled away.
“Ah! Mmph—!”
Hannah moved too fast. A hand clamped over Lilietta’s mouth as the older girl dragged her into an iron hold, stifling her thrashing limbs. In an eerie, hollow cadence, Hannah muttered a rapid, breathless chant under her breath.
《I will it》
Lilietta caught nothing else. She had no room in her head to listen, flailing with all her might to pry herself loose. The hem of her nightdress snagged in the brambles. A low branch tore a long gash across her leg, drawing blood and ripping the linen away. The crimson-stained scrap remained tangled in the briars.
Hannah’s chant cut out all at once. Lilietta felt the strength melt out of her limbs in an instant, her body slumping limp like a marionette severed from its strings. Hannah hoisted the weight onto her back, retrieved the slipper thrown during the struggle, and took to the trail once more.
Lilietta’s eyes remained open, but her limbs refused every command. She could only watch the dark water edge closer and closer. On the shore, there were no biscuits, no cups of milk, no blanket, and no book of constellations.
There was only a bare coffin.
Hannah lowered the barefoot girl into the box. Lilietta wanted to scream as she looked upon the grotesque sigils carved across the interior, but her lips would not even part.
The wooden lid began to slide shut. Right before the darkness sealed her in, Lilietta saw Hannah looking down with a sorrowful, bitter expression—a face that belonged to no child.
The lid clamped shut, locking her in pitch blackness. Wood scraped hard against stones and soil as the coffin was dragged along the earth. A moment later, water parted around it with a muffled splash.
No. Is she… is she casting the coffin into the lake?
Was this where her life ended?
Terror swamped her entirely. She wanted to weep, to scream for help, to at least shut her eyelids against the dark. She could not manage even that. She lay unmoving, half-lidded, nothing more than a ruined doll.
By fortune or cruel fate, no water leaked inside. Lilietta had no way to mark the time that followed. Each second dragged like an eternity, though little time had actually slipped by.
A strange radiance began to trace the distorted patterns etched along the inner panels.
Pain pierced deep into her skull, sharp as a needle. The agony struck so violently that her thoughts shredded to white and her sight dissolved into static.
She kept screaming silently inside her head, over and over, until at last the sound tore out into the open air and struck her own ears.
Lilietta was thrashing violently, screaming at the top of her lungs. Heavy hands locked around her head with unyielding strength, pinning her down. Her mind shattered into complete chaos.
Then the torment vanished as abruptly as it had descended. She blinked through streaming tears to find a hooded man standing before her. He wiped the wetness from her cheeks and turned her toward an expansive mirror. In the glass, a freckled girl with reddish-brown hair stared back—a girl bearing a faint likeness to Hannah.
Who…? Is that me?
Had she always looked this way? As she stared uncomprehendingly at the stranger in the glass, the man spoke at her side.
“You are Rita.”
The syllables branded themselves across the empty white sheet of her mind. She did not think to doubt them.
“You are an orphan I took into my care. You have neither mother, nor father, nor kin.”
Rita peered up at him, dazed. The man rested his palm on the crown of her head. It felt as though the yawning hollow inside her was being poured full of substance.
“Now, recall the gnawing hunger and the misery that once broke you.”
All at once, memories rushed in: scrabbling through refuse, gagging at rotten filth, wasting away toward death until an outstretched hand offered salvation.
If you become my child, hunger will never touch you again.
She had grasped that hand. She recalled wolfing down the dry crust he offered, lying inside a casket traced with uncanny sigils just as he commanded, and then her mind—
“No, no, details so precise are useless to you. You must not become Dorothy. Even if your vessel is that of the worthless orphan Dorothy, the soul you carry is extraordinary… An exceptional circumstance, yet beyond question, the finest among them…”
The man’s voice drifted away, the memories blurring once more into fog. When her vision settled, Rita was gazing up at the hand stroking her hair, devoid of any doubt.
“…You should be thankful that I took you in.”
Be grateful to the great mage Pascal for rescuing you from starvation.
***
Lilietta opened her eyes. The guest room had grown familiar over the past few days. She no longer jerked awake in terror or searched the corners with guarded hostility.
She slid out from the sheets and crossed toward the window. The grounds beyond had altered in subtle ways over ten long years, yet the bones of the place remained unchanged.
The garden was still meticulously tended. Briar roses clung to the iron fence, though their buds had not yet swollen into bloom. Beyond them stretched the birch woods, shimmering with the tender green shoots of early spring.
She had spent her childhood playing among those flowerbeds. She would trail the groundskeeper—her knight of the blossoms, as she called him—begging to learn the names of every plant and shrub. She remembered searching out Richard whenever he retreated into the thickets to sulk after quarreling with Leonhart.
She would walk the woodland path beneath the birches, held secure between her brothers, or safe beside her mother and father.
Lilietta looked toward the matchbox resting on the writing desk. She slid it open, gazing down at the scrap of card tucked inside. Right then, a soft knock tapped against the door.