After the wish magic of the younger sibling she’d loved like a child was completed, scarlet flowers bloomed on Mount Afleger’s ohia lehua.

Carrying the heart of one who wanted to be human until the end, the flowers erased all magic existing in the world.

And not long after, the ohia lehua that had borne two colors of flowers was swallowed by the volcano’s fire.

Also, very far from the volcano in the Arctic where no one came, the glacier’s lilac quietly collapsed, frozen in snow and shattered by wind.

* * *

The two lay side by side, hands clasped tight. Looking up at the lilac shedding light and the unfamiliar star shining in the night sky, they burst into laughter whenever their eyes met.

Then, like they’d made a promise, Aira and Jens spent the whole night sharing countless stories and warmth.

And at the time when dawn was just ending, the sea was dyed scarlet like Larabi’s hair by the sun hesitating beyond the horizon.

Aira suddenly felt gravity pulling at her whole body.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing…”

At Jens’s question, Aira looked around. And realized.

“Ah.”

“Aira?”

Aira quietly stared at her palm, then sent her gaze to the lilac that had lost its light and the true North Star that had become invisible.

“Magic power… I can’t feel magic in the world anymore.”

Larabi, as promised to her younger sibling, endured without blooming until everything ended, then achieved her wish.

Aira sat up and stroked the bark of the lilac that had been Merime.

The flower that bloomed in the Arctic and moved to Armeria Island, the medium that let her be reborn. But she couldn’t feel magic from it anymore.

She looked up at the sky. The stars she could sense whenever she wanted, day or night, no longer whispered any stories.

She felt very empty. And a little scared.

She thought she understood a bit of Melissa’s feelings—Larabi’s sister who’d wanted the royalty gone but feared when she tried to leave.

As she clenched and opened her empty palm, a long, slightly roughened hand settled on it.

Jens asked her with a worried face.

“Are you okay?”

“I expected this would happen.”

“Why did magic suddenly disappear?”

“That’s…”

Aira told him in a low voice about the ohia lehua Jorge and Larabi had bloomed.

Jens swallowed a groan.

“If your sister hadn’t held on until now…”

“I probably couldn’t have returned. The magic itself to complete the wish would have disappeared from the world.”

After Derevo, the mother tree that first bestowed magic on humans, disappeared, the power called magic slowly walked a downward path.

And the flowers bloomed by the seeds Derevo left and their descendants completely hid magic from this world.

She still couldn’t understand what magic was, what providence was. But there were things she could guess.

The world’s providence tried to collect from her the price that couldn’t be paid due to Jorge’s regression magic, and the wish magic Aira and Jens had made stood tautly against providence for completion.

What broke that balance was Aira’s choice to live, and Jens’s will to achieve the wish himself.

Thus providence was defeated. The victorious magic must have sent her back through its descendant Merime to complete the wish.

In May, when lilacs bloom.

“The wish…”

“Jens?”

At the ambiguous voice, Aira turned with a puzzled face.

Jens frowned and tried to recall something, then finally sighed like he’d given up.

“Magic really did disappear. I definitely remembered until just now, but it snatched it away. I can’t remember at all what I wished for back then.”

At those words, Aira smiled brightly.

“I remember, so I’ll tell you everything. There won’t be any more hiding now.”

But she felt overwhelmed about where to start. Aira shook her head.

“But in many ways, it was a purely unreasonable and ridiculous wish. A wish to revive me would have been easier.”

Wasn’t the cause of all this the Admiral’s ridiculous wish that shattered the world’s tacit agreement?

“Really? I can roughly guess though.”

Jens tapped his chest with a strange expression, then rummaged in his clothes and pulled out a small medicine bottle.

“Anyway, your experience with chronic illness is over now too.”

“Were you affected by the Emperor’s Disease too, Jens?”

Aira’s voice came out surprised, but Jens just lay there and laughed casually.

“Probably because of the memories magic left behind. Ah, you’re completely free from the Emperor’s Disease too, right? I tried to find the flower to repay the favor, but you did it yourself. You’re really capable.”

Aira, who’d been quietly watching Jens smile, opened her mouth.

“Are you praising me? Then think of one more word of admiration.”

“For what?”

To Jens tilting his head, Aira said with a gentle smile.

“The incurable disease that hardens muscles. I completely erased that from the world too.”

“…!”

Jens’s eyes widened. His shaking pupils wandered through the distant past. Then unable to endure, he raised both hands to cover his face. For a long while, only his Adam’s apple moved up and down.

To Aira’s ears waiting for him to collect his emotions came a voice choked with emotion.

A voice like the blood-covered child from the past.

“…Thank you.”

“Not at all.”

“Really, truly.”

“No. I’m… sorry.”

He who’d been quietly swallowing memories removed his hands from his covered face and stared at her.

Seeing his reddened eyes, Aira apologized once more.

“I’m sorry. I was so preoccupied with what I’d lost that I forgot you for a moment.”

Even recalling it now, it was a moment she felt too sorry about and regretted.

“Actually, I still miss Grandfather so much. But still, I shouldn’t have done that. Though I didn’t know, in the same way as Mother…”

Jens pulled her to him. Burying her face in his shoulder, Aira said.

“You can hate me. But I still want to be by your side. I have nowhere else to go since I threw away my job and home.”

A pfft sound came from above her forehead. When she looked up, Jens was watching her with a gentle smile.

“Yeah, I’ll forgive you. Actually I was waiting for a chance to pour out resentment, but the apology came first.”

Jens lightly kissed her forehead.

“How could I hate you? Once things settle down, let’s go see your grandfather in Oculer.”

“…Yes.”

Then he raised a finger reproachfully and tapped her nose.

“And why would you have nowhere to go? You should come to our house. Should I let others know you’ve returned too?”

Like waiting for the conversation’s end, the whitened sun brightened the sea. They nodded and stood up. But then.

“Ugh.”

Though he’d been like this for quite a while, Jens momentarily forgot his condition and carelessly stepped on the ground with his right leg, then staggered.

Aira quickly tried to support him, but…

“Ah.”

Since the muscle strengthening magic she’d been using like breathing had disappeared, Aira with only the weak strength matching her build couldn’t possibly support the large Jens.

Eventually they fell back into the armeria flower bed where they’d just been lying and talking. Startled by this, frogs chorused in groups. Ribbit ribbit.

Aira and Jens, facing each other with dumb expressions, burst into laughter again without either going first.

“What a mess.”

“You said it. We’re like idiots.”

Resting her chin on Jens’s chest as he laughed, body shaking for a while, Aira said in a regretful voice.

“I wish I could have healed your leg too.”

Unlike wish magic, the flower’s ability had limits. Merime’s ability, focused on erasing various diseases, couldn’t eliminate Jens’s injury.

Jens shook his head.

“You ended my lingering attachment. That’s enough.”

Even at those words, Aira looked dejected.

“I couldn’t even support you properly. Now I can’t use magic either, so I have no abilities. Are you okay with me? I can’t even protect you anymore.”

At those words, Jens flicked his finger absurdly and struck Aira’s forehead.

“I’ve felt this before, but you seem to treat me like a small animal.”

“But.”

“And now an era will come where pens and typewriters are stronger than guns and swords.”

“Still.”

“Well, if force is needed, I won’t rely on you but wield money instead. I’m rich after all.”

Jens sent a boastful smile, but Aira’s expression didn’t change. At this, he rummaged in his clothes and stuck a coin in Aira’s pocket with a “here, take it” feeling.

Eventually Aira laughed again.

After laughing with shaking shoulders for a while, Aira reached out and lightly stroked Jens’s somewhat thin neck that seemed to show his mental suffering, then kissed it.

Jens, who’d been wearing a playful expression, froze. The ear-splitting frogs also instantly quieted.

“Not outdoors. Not outdoors. There are frogs here too.”

“What on earth are you thinking? Indecent.”

Aira found the ball chain soldiers commonly wore on Jens’s neck and wound it around her finger.

On that chain that usually held dog tags, instead of personal information hung an antique ring set with a purple jewel.

Aira smiled brightly and held up the ring with her fingertips.

“Think I’d be satisfied with just one coin? Give me this. Then all your money becomes mine too, right?”

At those words, Jens burst into loud laughter.

“Fine. Strip me bare. Be extravagant, throw money in the sea, do whatever. It’s all yours.”

At those words, Aira grinned and tried to break the ball chain to take out the ring, but realized that without magic she couldn’t do that and obediently pulled out the chain.

And putting on the recovered Armeria ring herself, Aira said with a beaming smile.

“Then let’s substitute this for the wedding ceremony. I took off the veil, we kissed, and I put on the ring, so we’re done. If we delay more, we might never do it.”

“The guests are the lilac and armeria? And the wedding song is the frog chorus? Should I call this overflowing with romance, or a woman with no dreams?”

Jens shook his head, then put on the walking assistance device he’d taken off and stood up leaning on his cane. Aira also quickly got up and took Jens’s outstretched hand.

Supporting each other, they slowly walked toward the Will estate.

Then suddenly, Aira looked back.

There, the armeria—the same name as the island that was Jens and Hurst’s roots—was waving purple like a sea dyed in flower water.

Among those waves, newly bloomed lilac flowers swayed in the morning breeze like seeing them off.

Quietly watching that scenery, Aira gestured for Jens to lower himself.

Jens tilted his head with a puzzled expression. Aira spoke softly into his ear.

“If we have a baby someday, I’d like a daughter.”

“…!”

For a moment Jens froze, seemingly unable to process it. Soon he gradually turned red from the neck, then turned his completely flushed face and muttered.

“Right. A princess is better than etcetera after all.”

At those words, Aira smiled. Then she pulled his hand, telling him to look at her again.

Though they’d been busy with various things, not only she who’d sought death but Jens too hadn’t brought up children as a conversation topic at all because of resentment toward parents he himself didn’t know about.

But now they could leisurely think about the future.

“How about Merime for the name?”

Jens took a deep breath. Then he threw away his cane and hugged her tight like embracing her.

Soon a voice full of laughter leaked out.

“That’s a really cute name.”