But then why hadn’t he eaten it? Was there something about the cake he didn’t like?

No sooner had one question been resolved than another took its place. Eleanor was sitting with a puzzled expression, turning over the reason he had not touched the dessert, when she heard it.

Knock, knock. The wall connecting to the driver’s seat tapped twice.

“Miss, where shall I take you next?”

“Oh.”

She had been so worked up, and then so deep in thought, that she had forgotten to give Thomas a destination.

“I’m done with my errand. Take me home, please.”

Eleanor told the coachman, feeling a little sheepish about having kept him waiting all this time.

A light reply came back, and the wheels of the carriage, still until now, began to roll.

***

Eleanor walked through the front door with a slight edge of tension, then let out a quiet breath of relief when she realized the household’s owners were not home.

Ever since Eleanor had made it subtly clear she was willing to be made use of, her stepmother had been asking her regularly whether she would come along to a salon.

She did not need to go to know who would be there and what would be arranged.

She had been managing to get out of it so far with the excuse of prior engagements, but she would have to go at least once eventually.

For the sake of making meaningful use of the Anworth family’s invitation, and for the sake of living out her remaining time in this house without incident. She would have to let herself be used at least once.

Revolting. But even knowing something had to be done, it was human nature to keep putting off the moment of touching something foul for as long as possible.

All the more so when the thing to be touched was not just any piece of filth, but Morris O’Donnell, something closer to rotting food scraps.

If the plan looks like it won’t work out, I’ll just finish things myself before I have to witness that.

Eleanor shuddered slightly at the thought of the Rodelline Foundation chairman’s greasy face, making a grim resolution to herself, when it happened.

“You’re home early today, miss!”

Mia came out to take her coat and greeted her with a bright smile.

“Oh, and a letter came addressed to you. I left it on your desk.”

“A letter?”

Eleanor, still unable to shake the imagined feel of Morris O’Donnell’s thick, bristly hand, asked with a sharp edge to her voice.

“Who is it from?”

“Hmm. The seal wasn’t one I recognized, so I can’t quite remember… but I don’t think it was from a noble.”

At that, Eleanor’s nerves pulled even tighter. Surely not, O’Donnell himself… Having imagined the worst, Eleanor’s face went tense and she walked quickly to her room.

Phew.

But thankfully, the sender of the letter was not Morris O’Donnell.

I nearly died even sooner. Grateful that her remaining days had not been shortened, Eleanor slid the paper knife under the wax seal and broke it open.

Dear Miss Aster, my beloved teacher!

The sender who opened with that greeting in the most exuberant handwriting imaginable was someone Eleanor was glad to hear from.

How have you been? I heard from Vivian that you’ve come to the Capital, so I’m writing to you right away!

Maemi Barnett. The curly red hair of the young student, who must have turned fifteen this year, seemed to appear right above those cheerful letters, and Eleanor found herself smiling without meaning to.

Surely you didn’t come all the way to Elvira and plan to leave without seeing me? After making such a firm promise when I left Rodelline?

I believe Miss Aster is not so cruel a person as that. Of course, my teacher would never so easily break a student’s trust!

The matter of having to process the withdrawal against the student’s own wishes, due to her parents’ firm decision after the incident, was something that had stayed with Eleanor as a source of heartache.

But contrary to her worries, Maemi appeared to be growing up well and safely, surrounded by her family’s love.

And my brother is home. You know him, don’t you, Miss Aster? Alden Barnett.

Alden has been bragging to me endlessly about going to do volunteer medical work at Rodelline Girls’ School. I’m so jealous that you have an older brother, Miss Aster.

The letter writing form still needs a bit more work.

Eleanor’s expression had turned mildly concerned at the letter, which observed none of the conventions of correspondence whatsoever, but she ended up smiling again all the same.

I do hope you’ll accept the invitation. Mother and Father have said several times that they would like to invite Miss Aster, that they want to repay even a little of the debt they owe you for saving me.

Oh, Alden also said he hopes you’ll come. He insisted I make sure to include his name in the letter. So presumptuous, honestly.

Eleanor read the shape of the soft-hearted doctor in those lines, the one who had been on the verge of tears as he delivered her terminal diagnosis.

The kind doctor who had traveled all the way out to the East to do volunteer work, simply because it was the school his younger sister had attended, still seemed to have her condition weighing on his mind.

Maemi wrote that she would send a carriage immediately if Eleanor agreed to come for lunch, then went on for quite some time with one small piece of news after another before writing her closing.

With all the earnest hope of someone waiting for your reply.

Eleanor Aster’s devoted friend, Maemi Barnett.

But that was not the true ending. Maemi had been unable to hold back her curiosity and added a postscript after all.

Miss Aster, I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious. Did something happen between you and my brother?

If something did… I would be absolutely, truly delighted!

Something happened, all right. There was a diagnosis.

Eleanor set the letter down on the old desk, smiling once more at the way Maemi had made a small effort toward proper form toward the end, only to abandon it entirely and finish however she pleased.

It was something to be deeply grateful for. That the young student who had left school three years ago was doing this well and living so healthily. And that the girl had not forgotten her after all this time, and had written like this.

How kind of her. Eleanor thought about how the little mischief-maker must have grown, and took a sheet of writing paper from the drawer.

Before dipping her old pen in the ink and writing the first line, Eleanor found herself, without thinking, calling to mind the last time she had seen Maemi.

“I don’t want to go, Miss Aster. I don’t want to leave.”

The reason that twelve-year-old girl, who had loved her friends and teachers so dearly, had been forced to leave was a monster attack.

The fact that the dragon with its immense mana had entered its eternal rest some five hundred years ago had not meant that the enormous number of monsters beneath it all vanished at once. They had lost their leader, but they clung on stubbornly, threatening the empire and striving to reclaim their former dominance.

But they appeared only in the vicinity of the Siovik Mountain Range in the North. There were times they crossed that boundary and came as far down as the area near the old Kingdom of Iluever in the North, but their attacks rarely broke through the Grand Duchy’s defensive line.

It was not that they could only survive in cold climates, or that some barrier had been erected in the Siovik Mountain Range.

The reason those terrible creatures could not leave the North was solely because of the master who ruled there.

The Siermaiem family, who had defeated the dragon and become founding merit subjects of the empire, received the mandate to protect the empire from the founding emperor and became the masters of the North.

In the five hundred or so years that followed, the Grand Ducal House had served as the shield protecting the empire from the monsters.

What made that possible was the overwhelming military strength of the northern army and the Grand Ducal House’s knight order. More precisely, it was the Siermaiem family, who had built and maintained that force with discipline and care over generations.

The Grand Ducal House, which had fought the monsters for so long that it had even declined the imperial throne, possessed knowledge and skill in dealing with them that no other nation could match. It was one of the greatest reasons the people of the empire had come to take peaceful lives for granted.

But even so, the Grand Ducal House could not control every monster in existence.

Once every few decades, on rare occasions, monsters that had overpopulated would swarm together and push past the North to invade the West or the East.

And three years ago was the year that misfortune fell on the East.

Eleanor, still seated at her desk to write a reply to her former student, slipped into a memory of the moment she first met him.

It had been less than a year since she had started working as a teacher. It was summer, when the wheat was still green, and early evening, when the earth the sun had scorched through the day had not yet cooled.

“Maemi?”

Twelve-year-old Maemi had been an even worse troublemaker three years ago. The girl had a habit of sneaking back to the school at hours when she should have been in the dormitory getting ready for bed, to cause mischief.

Eleanor had known, in truth, that the mischief was a way of wanting her attention. She knew it was a kind of acting out that a child separated early from her parents would do, wanting to hold the hand of a teacher she liked.

Because Eleanor herself had grown up at this school and become a teacher here.

“Maemi, where are you?”

She knew she should have called the behavior out firmly and not given her what she wanted, but she had not been able to do that at the time. Partly because she still lacked experience, and partly because a fleeting glimpse of her own younger self had passed through her mind.

She had regretted it for a long time afterward. That she should have scolded Maemi to stop her. That she should not have given her the special experience of finding the child where she hid, taking her hand, and walking her back to the dormitory.

Because if she had, Maemi would not have had to see that horrible sight.

“Come out quickly and go back to the dormitory…”

Eleanor had just opened the door to the classroom where Maemi often hid and was about to walk toward the lectern when it happened.

Beyond the dim window, a cluster of red eyes clung to the glass, packed close together.