Chapter 11

Zechart spotted Edith at a fair distance from the city hall.

There was a gap in time—he’d tailed Gisela in the opposite direction before turning back—but since he knew where his real target was heading, finding her wasn’t difficult. Besides, he had a car.

The twilight streets were empty, and Edith walked along them, looking utterly drained.

Watching her from a ways off, Zechart pulled out a cigarette, jaw set and brow furrowed tight.

She said she got married young. Loved her husband enough to marry the moment she came of age…

Why did that bother him so much? Then again, everything about this woman did. Even her name—Edith—that damnable name.

 ‘…Maximilian.’

It must have been her beloved husband’s name. The sound of it slipped dryly from Zechart’s lips.

A pity the man was already dead. If he’d been alive, Zechart could have killed him himself—that was the only reason it felt like a waste.

He lit his cigarette. Each drag made the ember glow bright red in the swirling smoke.

He wasn’t following Edith for any special reason. He’d already searched Sasha’s house, but hadn’t found the Enigma. No doubt the place had hidden rooms, but he didn’t have time to comb through them. That was the real reason for tailing the woman…

Click.

Even he found the excuse pathetic, and a faint, self-mocking smile touched his lips.

That was when Edith staggered badly. The sudden movement made the long ash tumble from the tip of his cigarette and land on his knee.

Zechart only noticed when Edith righted herself with a hand against the wall. He brushed the ash off, irritated, but a pale smudge still remained on his trousers.

In the meantime, a military truck transporting prisoners to the camp rumbled between him and her, choking the street with its gray, acrid smoke.

And when the truck had finally passed and he could see her again, Zechart tossed his cigarette to the ground.

She was crying. Not just crying—she was crouched down, sobbing.

Why that struck him so hard, Zechart couldn’t say. He was so overcome he even got out of his car—almost dashed over to help her up. Only a last shred of sense, blaring in his head like a car horn, stopped him from taking that step.

So he stood, frozen in the middle of the street.

She sat slumped against a wall, face buried between her knees, thin shoulders trembling as she wept. Time crawled. It almost felt as if everything had stopped—like he was pinned in place, staring at her. He told himself it was a pathetic excuse, just dust in the wind.

Whether it was a minute or ten, eventually Edith lifted her head. With hands pale as paper, she quickly wiped her eyes and cheeks, staggered a little, then straightened up. And she walked on. Her cheeks and even the tip of her nose were still red, but there was a new steadiness in her step.

As if she’d made up her mind about something.

***

Three days passed.

Edith desperately wanted to believe she’d been mistaken, but it turned out to be true—all the resistance members who were supposed to join her here had been captured by the Stifts. They’d been stopped for a surprise inspection while traveling by train.

As a result, when Edith, Perel, Sasha, and Karon gathered, the mood was utterly grim.

It was Perel who finally broke the heavy silence, his voice low.

“I’m afraid we can’t expect any further support. With Loris and our other people caught, every train platform is crawling with inspectors now. Escaping by boat still looks possible, but coming through Glyssen would take too long.”

A heavy sigh drifted over the table—a sigh that could have belonged to any of them. The situation was dire, yet none dared to suggest giving up. Success here was their only chance: if they could pull off this operation, Glyssen might provide support to help them rescue Loris and the others from the camp.

Karon turned to Edith.

“How’s the situation at the auditorium?”

“The distance from city hall’s main gate to the auditorium is substantial. It took me over twenty minutes on foot—at least five thousand feet, by my guess. If we tried a shooting during the event, we’d be killed on the spot before we could escape.”

“What about a sniper?” Sasha asked.

Edith shook her head, eyes closed.

“Every window in the auditorium has heavy curtains. They’ll keep them closed during the event, specifically to prevent a sniper attack. There’s no way to shoot from outside.”

“Then that only leaves…”

Sasha started, and Karon finished.

“A bomb.”

It was the option everyone knew but no one wanted to say aloud.

“Let’s rule that out for now,” Edith said.

“The only bombs we could get are homemade and can’t be remotely detonated. You’d have to set them off manually, Karon. After that, you’d have maybe ten minutes to escape. But during the event, janitors aren’t allowed in the auditorium.”

Someone would have to sneak in disguised as a Stifts, set off the device, and then escape. With Perel’s face known and no reinforcements coming, that left only Karon.

That was why nobody had spoken up—they all knew what it would mean, sending the father of an unborn child on a suicide mission.

It was Karon who finally broke the silence with a wry laugh.

“You all really don’t trust me, do you?”

“It’s not that, Karon—”

“I’ll do it.”

“….”

“Let me handle it.”

Karon gave Edith a steady, kind smile. She was about to protest—but under the table, someone took her hand in a cold, firm grip. It was Sasha, shaking her head with tearful eyes.

A tear finally slipped down Sasha’s cheek, and Edith’s heart ached at the sight.

“You two really are idiots, you know that?”

Sasha managed through a shaky smile, wiping her eyes as Karon gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

***

Facing the wall, Gisela stood stiff with nerves. She wasn’t exactly a timid person by nature, but anyone would feel this way with a gun pressed to their back.

She didn’t think he’d break their deal, but even after three days of this, she couldn’t get used to it. What made it worse was that she just didn’t have much to say. How much small talk could you possibly make with someone you only saw at work? Besides, the taciturn “Liche” barely answered even when spoken to, which made learning anything about her nearly impossible.

“Uh, it was the same as always today. We were both so busy there wasn’t really any chance for a real conversation…”

“Doesn’t matter. Just tell me exactly what happened.”

Swallowing dryly, Gisela squeezed her eyes shut. If he didn’t care, then maybe she really could say anything.

“Liche said she skipped breakfast today. Said she overslept. But honestly, she still looked tired. Umm, oh, at lunch I saw her, but she hardly touched her meal and just ate the cookies they gave out for dessert. Today’s lunchbox only had pickled vegetables, so maybe she’s picky, and that’s why she’s so thin…”

A soft, airless laugh escaped him. At first, Gisela had been startled by those little laughs, but now she’d gotten somewhat used to it. In fact, whenever she spoke about Liche, the man would often laugh like that.

“Anything else?”

“…Um, let me think… That’s it. After that, we all went to our assigned spots for work. If you’d just tell me what you’re actually curious about, I could try to find out…”

In the end, Gisela’s voice grew small and frightened.

“Th-that’s really all. I mean it. I didn’t talk to her again after that, just said goodbye at the end of the shift and came straight here.”

The silence that followed was unusually long, and Gisela started to panic. Maybe tonight, he really would kill her. She’d been feeding him nothing but useless information for days.

“Please… please don’t kill me.”

The gun finally lifted from her back just as her breath quickened and her eyes grew hot with tears.

“Ah!”

She let out a shaky sigh of relief as she heard the man’s footsteps retreating.

But just then, something struck her—a belated memory. On impulse, she let out a surprised sound, and his footsteps stopped cold.

She bit her lip, knowing she’d probably just put herself in even more danger. It was too late to take it back—the man was coming back toward her.

“What?”

“Well… This might just be my personal impression, but I think Liche is a little odd.”

“Be specific.”

“Well, most people like to stick to the jobs they’re used to, right? But Liche volunteers for a different section every day. She even takes on the jobs nobody wants, like cleaning the walls or the windows…”

“…”

“She’s changed jobs so much she’s been to almost every part of city hall by now, you know?”

Gisela hadn’t thought much of what she said, but at that, Zechart’s dark eyes rippled with the faintest disturbance.