“I need to go find someone, so I’ll take my leave first. My brother will be here soon, so I’ll leave getting you home to him.”

“Astaire!”

“You only ever call my name at times like this.”

I gave my mother a small smile as she raised her voice in a way unlike her, then turned and walked away. The thought that dominated my mind was that even the time spent standing here saying these things was time I could not afford to waste. I wanted nothing. I simply wanted to leave this place and see the face of the one person I could not stop thinking about.

It did not matter if my peace shattered. Even if the world broke apart at a single word from me, even if the ideals I had carried my whole life came crumbling down, none of it mattered. I was certain that if I could only hold that person in my arms right now, I could endure anything this world had to offer.

In that moment, a name was etched onto the old feeling I had been turning away from all this time.

* * *

After one last sweep of the hospital, I turned my steps toward the Astrid estate. My reasoning was that if something had happened to Danyu, she would have sent word home first, just as my mother had contacted the family home after being taken to the hospital.

But the estate I hurried to was utterly quiet. The scene was so peaceful that several maids looked at me strangely as I knocked urgently at the door. I caught one of the maids I recognized from my comings and goings during lessons and asked after Danyu, and she tilted her head as though she had heard something odd.

“The young miss left for school early this morning. She said she had class. Did you not see her?”

Relief and worry hit me at the same time the moment I heard that. The absence of any word from the hospital seemed like good news, but the fact that Danyu had left home in the morning and then simply vanished was unsettling. What troubled me most of all, though, was myself. I had no idea where Danyu might have gone.

What she liked and what she did not. Where she went when she was in a bad mood, and what she did when she wanted to rest. I had observed Danyu for a very long time, but I knew far less about her than I had imagined. It was because I had always watched her from one step removed. For the first time, I resented that careful distance I had believed was protecting my life all along.

“Is something the matter?”

Someone approached me as I wandered without direction. It was a woman wearing a loose, comfortable house robe that covered her completely. It was not the kind of thing a young lady of a distinguished family would wear even indoors, but what struck me more than her clothes was the red hair, the same shade as Danyu’s. Looking more closely, it was not just the color of her hair but the shape of her eyes and the curve of her lips that bore a strong resemblance to Danyu.

“Miss.” The maid addressed her as miss. As far as I knew, there were only two people in the Astrid estate who would be called miss. With Danyu absent, only one remained. Liv Astrid, Danyu’s older sister, the one the marriage proposal had once concerned.

“I’m Astaire Werner. You must be Miss Liv Astrid?”

At my greeting, the amber eyes that had been watching me with wariness quickly filled with interest.

“Ah, you’re the one!”

She laughed brightly and extended her hand for a handshake. It was a greeting most young women in Seydel would never have dreamed of.

“Lovely to meet you. We should have met much sooner, but things don’t always go the way you plan, do they?”

“I heard you had been living abroad.”

“I was. I came back a few days ago. I couldn’t keep running forever.”

She said it with a laugh, and there was something refreshingly straightforward about her, so I took her hand without hesitation and returned the handshake. Since she had fled abroad in protest of a marriage arrangement made purely for the family’s interests, and had done so before we ever properly met, this was the first time we had come face to face, yet she did not feel unfamiliar. Danyu Astrid’s face with Charlotte Ilse’s personality. I found that rather amusing.

“I had been thinking I should pay you a visit at some point. I thought I’d arrange something once things settled down, but I didn’t expect to meet you like this.”

“If it’s about the previous marriage proposal, Lady Astrid already offered a sincere apology, and that is more than sufficient.”

“The previous proposal? Oh, there’s that too, but there’s a bigger reason. Shouldn’t you actually be thanking me for calling it off? It’s all hindsight at this point, but someone as wild as me would never have suited you, would it?”

A smile spread across Liv’s face. I tilted my head, not quite catching the meaning behind that playful smile, and she promptly changed the subject. Each time Liv took a light step closer, the oversized robe shifted around her.

“But what brings you to the estate? As it happens, both my mother and Danyu are out.”

Her words brought my purpose back to me at once. My expression darkened in an instant, and the smile on Liv’s face disappeared along with it. She had sensed that something serious had happened.

“Miss Danyu did not come to class.”

“What? That can’t be right. That girl has a pointlessly conscientious streak. Missing class is something she couldn’t even imagine. And especially not your class.”

Just as Liv said, Danyu had never missed a single lesson. Students with attendance records like hers were rare within the university, and she was very well regarded among the professors for it. In truth, the university staff had not expected the Jubilion winner to attend ordinary classes so diligently, which made them appreciate it all the more.

The dean in particular had praised me highly as Danyu’s academic advisor, saying it would be good for the university’s reputation. Since I had done nothing whatsoever to improve her attendance, I never knew what to do with that praise and could only smile awkwardly whenever I received it.

“Yes, I know. There happened to be an explosion at the plaza, so I wondered whether she might have been caught up in it.”

“It sounds like you’ve already heard, but we haven’t received any word here. So it seems she wasn’t caught up in the accident.”

Liv frowned, unable to finish the thought. Several unpleasant possibilities had clearly flashed through her mind as well.

“In any case, the fact that we haven’t heard anything here probably means she hasn’t come to any harm. We’ll send someone to look for her on our end, so why don’t you head back to the school, Professor Werner? She may have gone back while you were out.”

Liv said this after a brief pause to think. I had just been considering the same thing, so my next destination was decided without hesitation.

I said my goodbyes to Liv and made my way back through the plaza, where traces of the explosion still lingered. The sun had dropped behind the mountains by then. It was hard to believe so much time had passed when I had only searched a handful of places for Danyu. The fading red of the sunset felt ominous somehow, and I fixed my gaze on the ground and walked toward the school.

The school at this late hour was cold in a way that made the energy of the daytime hard to believe. Only a few lamps lit the darkened corridors, adding what little warmth they could. I walked toward the practice room to the sound of my own solitary footsteps echoing through the hall. I had rushed out in such a hurry that I had left the sheet music behind.

On the way to the practice room, a few students heading home greeted me. Under normal circumstances I would have smiled and asked how they were, but today I could not find the room for it. I gave a brief nod and pressed on, and the students murmured among themselves as they moved away.

“What are you doing here?”

A few male students were clustered outside the practice room door when I arrived. They had been peering through the small glass window and snickering, but my voice startled them and they scattered from the door. I wondered what on earth could be inside, and turned my gaze through the glass. A small figure sat at the piano. Red hair, slight build. It was Danyu.

“We’re sorry.”

The students scrambled away at the sight of my expression, which had gone rigid in an instant. Imagining what words might have passed between them as they stood there snickering made my head go distant. I knew perfectly well it was not Danyu’s fault, and yet the anger rose in me anyway.

Alone at school at this hour. The university may have been considered relatively safe, but only by comparison to the busier parts of the city. At a time when women’s access to higher education had only just begun to grow, the vast majority of students were still men, and in a space like that, trouble could break out at any moment.

I could not hold back the anger, and I pulled the practice room door open roughly. Danyu startled and jumped to her feet from the piano bench. The slow melody that had been drifting through the room cut off abruptly, and silence filled the empty space in its place.

“Astaire. I’m sorry for missing class. Shall I make it up now?”