The boy didn’t pull his hand away. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to break Cora Babineau’s concentration on the task at hand. He didn’t want to break his own concentration on Cora Babineau.

“There. Be careful not to let the wound get wet for a few days, alright?”

Cora finished checking the bandage and let go without hesitation. The boy barely stopped himself from instinctively closing his fist. He had nearly caught her slipping fingers in his grip.

Intense feeling strikes without warning. It arrives in an unguarded instant, a violent rush that sweeps in and takes something precious, a kind of plunder. He was hit full-on by the rough wave that surged and crashed over him without notice.

It was a torrent that had broken through part of the Cactus Garden’s wall, flooding in to soak the dry sand and the thorned plants. The fierce swell finally pulled back. He rubbed his stinging eyes and turned around. In the middle of the receding water, fragments of the ruined wall spun in the current. His throat burned.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Cora Babineau finished a light lunch and, with the help of her maid, prepared for her afternoon nap. Then a loud noise from below the wing where her bedroom was startled her into opening the window.

“Goodness, Miss. Why are you watching that?”

Maya was the same age as Cora and had followed her from the Babineau residence in Lutes to Villa Efrysia to attend to her. She had come with Cora’s stepmother, Eloise Babineau, when she married into the family. There was a clear difference in station between them, mistress and maid. But Cora, who had no friends her own age, treated Maya with the warmth of a sibling. Maya was fond of the sweet, crispy snacks and lace ribbons Cora often shared with her.

“Maya, who are those people?”

“What do you mean, who. Men beating each other up. What a lowly lot! If they’re hot, they should go quietly take a nap. I don’t know what they find so enjoyable about making all that noise. They cause a scene like this every single day.”

“Does this happen often?”

“Well, it seems so. They get into fistfights at least once or twice a week.”

“Isn’t that wrong? Should I speak to Father about it?”

Cora fixed her gaze on the dark-haired man being beaten one-sidedly and asked. Clashes among servants happened in any household, but if they were severe and frequent, the master had a responsibility to intervene. Left unchecked, it would create divisions and become far more troublesome later.

“Miss, really……”

Maya shook her head slowly.

“Don’t even think about telling the master.”

She raised her index finger in warning, as if scolding a disobedient dog that wouldn’t listen.

“Why not?”

“Because when someone above gets involved in the affairs of those below, it only makes things worse. Do you think men like that would reflect on themselves after getting a word from the master? They’d just find more cunning ways to torment him.”

“……Really?”

“Of course. Unless it’s an all-out brawl, something like this doesn’t even count as trouble.”

“But several people are ganging up on one person. Why isn’t anyone stopping it?”

Indeed, not one of the servants and maids gathered around made any move to help the man being beaten. Cora Babineau found that deeply suspicious.

“Well, that’s……”

Maya made no effort to hide her exasperation at the flustered young lady. Rather than bother explaining the realities of the world to the sheltered Cora at length, she chose to gloss over it.

“……Just pretend you didn’t see it. They’ve all been driven mad by the heat. I find myself irritable sometimes since coming down to Cappera too. My body goes limp, and I get angry over the smallest things.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t you feel the same, Miss?”

“I’m not sure. If anything, I rather like it.”

“You like it?”

“Yes. It’s peaceful here.”

“Don’t you miss Young Marquis Lacroix?”

“……”

Cora said nothing. Maya pouted, clearly displeased.

Eugène Lacroix was the man Count Babineau was desperate to have as a son-in-law. He was a popular and charming figure in the capital Lutes, and the heir to a distinguished family set to inherit a marquisate.

His father, Marquis Arnaud Lacroix, was a major figure who had taken part in the coup led by Bonaparte III and laid the groundwork for the imperial regime, and was among the current Emperor’s closest confidants. He was also the one who had restored the wealth and titles that the old republic, built on a citizen-led revolution, had stripped from the nobility.

Because of this, the gratitude and trust Gallian nobles felt toward the Lacroix family ran deep. Among them, Eugène Lacroix, the Lacroix heir, stood at the very top of the tower built on that gratitude and trust.

But Cora found him rather disagreeable. Eugène was a thoroughly arrogant man. His deeply ingrained sense of privilege, and the fact that he was all too thoroughly aware of his own worth, sat poorly with her.

“Still, that person really isn’t making much use of that build of his. Just standing there taking it.”

Maya muttered, drawing the thin lace curtain shut. Cora looked at the curtain Maya had closed with something like regret.

“Who is he?”

“He’s the grandson of the painter the former Countess was fond of, apparently. That painter is practically a kite with a cut string now too, from what I hear. He just does odd jobs around the place, it seems.”

“I see……”

“I ran into him in the corridor not long ago, and his eyes were bright red.”

Maya rolled her green eyes as if replaying the memory. The shock of seeing that man for the first time still lingered in her mind. She had immediately understood why the maids of Villa Efrysia, Alicia included, had made such a fuss.

“The maids whisper that they’d be happy to fall into hell itself if it meant being with him.”

“……”

“That’s exactly why the men pick on him without reason. He’s been the undisputed number one in their popularity vote every month, so they’re wary of him. I don’t know why men are even more jealous than women.”

“A popularity vote?”

“I only heard about it after coming here, but apparently the maids hold a vote among the young male servants for fun. That ‘Voclang’ is always first place, and apparently the result has never changed. Of course it hasn’t. He stands out overwhelmingly among men who look like squid just hauled out of the sea out front.”

Cora Babineau listened quietly as Maya chattered away with uncharacteristic excitement, then blinked and asked a question. Her head tilted slightly to one side.

“But why do they call him ‘Voclang’?”

‘Voclang’ was the Gallian word for ‘foreigner,’ ‘outsider.’ It was also a name that carried in it all the contempt and exclusion directed at those from other countries.

“Because he looks exactly like someone from Prosen.”

“Doesn’t he have a name?”

“I don’t know his name. No one calls him by it, apparently. He never told anyone.”

“He never told anyone his name?”

“That’s right. Strange, isn’t it?”

“What about his surname?”

“He refuses to take the painter grandfather’s surname either, so everyone just calls him Voclang, or hey, you, bastard, things like that.”

Voclang…… Cora Babineau turned the word over quietly in her mouth. Her fingertips tingled for no reason.

“Oh, the old man’s here now. The old painter, I mean. Looks like he’s trying to break it up.”

Maya’s expression shifted to one of profound relief as she glanced to the side. Then she slapped Cora on the back and pushed her toward the bed, where she was still lingering by the window. Cora Babineau pulled the blanket over herself with her usual compliance. It was now properly time to enjoy the siesta.

An hour later, however, Cora slipped out to the garden with her handbag. She made her way to the boy with the red eyes, eyes like hellfire that burned away every idle thought. She left Maya behind, fast asleep and snoring in the small room adjoining her bedroom. That had been about a week ago, the first time they met.

After that, Cora came to the Cactus Garden day after day. She told herself it was to tend to the boy’s injured hand. It was an improper curiosity she couldn’t even be honest with herself about. Knowing this, she still felt helplessly restless as the siesta hour drew near.

“Um, listen.”

Cora Babineau, unable to bear the silence, spoke first. She glanced sideways at what the boy was using as a pillow.

The boy was sitting on the sandy ground a little apart from the rock where Cora sat. The servants of Villa Efrysia were also allowed two hours of siesta each day, and during that time he would slip into the deserted Cactus Garden and take his solitary rest.

Between two and four in the afternoon was when Cappera’s heat reached its peak. The space, with not a single patch of shade or a spot of damp earth, was hot enough to call to mind a furnace. Even on Cora Babineau’s slender white neck, the heat the sun had poured down gathered into beads of sweat.