"The young master shouldn't be thinking too much just now. Don't worry, I'll come back the moment the work is finished."
Raea spent most of her time packing what Elaine would need over the three days. What she took for herself was very little.
A silver-white longsword, and some plain food that would restore her strength quickly.
"What else is there for me to do right now except think too much? Fine, you won't let me out, like I'm some kind of pet. And now you're leaving me at home on my own..."
The truth was that Elaine had got frightened.
Raea's hands stopped on the books.
"The young master is not a pet."
Elaine had more to say.
Hearing that, she stalled a little. Raea came slowly closer, her voice low.
"The young master is not."
"Then what am I?"
She raised her eyes to Elaine.
The grey-blue in them was excessively quiet.
"The young master."
Raea's wiring left Elaine with nothing to say. The line seemed to answer no question at all, and also to have answered every one of them.
Raea did not go on.
She went to the door and pressed her fingers to the silver seal-tag. A thin light ran once around the seam of the door and slowly dimmed. Compared with the ones before it, this seal of Raea's was noticeably more complicated.
Elaine watched the light.
"You're not seriously planning to just leave me in the house for three days, are you?"
Raea looked back.
"Yes. Young master, please take good care of yourself while I'm gone."
That shut Elaine up.
Raea came back to the bed and leaned down to draw the coat closer around her shoulders. Her fingers stopped when they touched Elaine's wrist, and closed there lightly.
Not a hard grip, but she didn't let go straight away, as though she couldn't quite bear to.
"Young master."
"Mm?"
"Don't open the door for these three days."
"I know."
"If someone knocks, don't make a sound."
"I know, I know..."
"And don't go touching the seal-tag by the window."
"Do you think I'd touch a thing like that?"
Elaine had in fact tried to unpick one before, and had come close to catching the backlash off Raea's seal. Fortunately Raea seemed to have anticipated that, and Elaine had come to no harm.
Raea looked at her. Elaine went quiet.
"Fine. I might."
"Don't touch it."
"All right, all right, I won't touch it."
Raea still hadn't let go. She seemed to have a great deal more to say, and every word of it, once it reached her lips, got pressed back down again bit by bit.
And yet she seemed, at last, a little more at ease.
She released Elaine's hand and turned to leave.
Before the door closed she looked back once more.
It was a very short look, but Elaine could read it: Raea did not want to go at all.
The lock fell into place and the room went quiet again.
Elaine sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the door, and it was a good while before she slowly let out a breath.
The moment Raea was gone, Elaine turned her attention to the few books Raea had brought back.
Yesterday she had mentioned wanting to read something on occult studies. Books of that kind were almost never seen in the ordinary bookshops, because the world Elaine lived in had genuine gods in it, and too much knowledge was not always a good thing.
The more you knew, the more easily you were corrupted.
Elaine had only got a rough sense of this after coming of age, and that thanks to her family.
A fallen family, admittedly, so what she knew went no deeper than the skin.
Just as she was opening something along the lines of an introduction to occult studies, a very small sound came from the window beside her.
She assumed she had misheard.
She looked up at the curtain. It was quiet for several seconds.
Then someone tapped lightly on the glass from outside.
Once. Twice.
Polite, certainly. From where Elaine was sitting, it was also somewhat terrifying.
She didn't move, because she wouldn't have known where to run to... What she had to do now was pretend there was nobody in the room.
The person outside clearly had no intention of cooperating. The silver seal-tag flared once.
A second later the window latch gave a very small CLICK, and a corner of the curtain was lifted from outside.
A girl with pale purple hair put her head in.
She wore a grey raincoat, and under it a lady's outdoor dress with an elaborate pattern, most likely a style much in fashion among the young ladies of Castibury. A pair of violet eyes surveyed the layout of the room with open curiosity.
Elaine's first thought had been a burglar. But... looking at the girl in front of her, dressed head to foot as a noble, and at how easily she had undone the seal Raea set, this was no thief from any angle.
The girl looked over the room first, then at Elaine by the bed.
Her gaze settled last on the long silver-white hair, the girl's nightgown, and the several romance novels by the bed that, by any measure, did not look entirely respectable.
The air went still for two seconds. The girl blinked.
"Wow."
Elaine clutched the quilt, frozen where she sat.
"You... you, who are you?"
The girl didn't answer. She smiled instead.
"Surely that's my line."
She swung in through the window lightly and landed with almost no sound, then straightened and brushed the scattered rain off her skirts, entirely composed for someone who had just broken in. And the instant she was inside, the seal at the window was as whole as it had ever been.
"No wonder Miss Astraea has been in such a hurry to get home these last few days. What are you to Miss Raea?"
The violet eyes fixed on Elaine the way an interrogator fixes on a criminal, and being looked at that way made her uncomfortable.
The girl took a step closer, her gaze travelling from Elaine's face back to the books by the bed.
Elaine's fingers tightened on the corner of the quilt, a little at a time.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Honestly, Elaine had no idea how she was supposed to answer. And besides... this was plainly Raea's home, so why did this girl's questions sound so entirely a matter of course?
"This is Raea's room. Breaking in like this, aren't you worried she'll come after you when she gets back?"
"Eh... worried? This young lady has not known how to spell the word since the day she was born."
At the question she was visibly a little guilty, and hurried to lift her comparatively flat chest higher.
Then her gaze passed over the not inconsiderable swell of Elaine's, and she looked as though she had taken a blow.
"But... but since this is an investigation, naturally one comes when she isn't in."
Elaine couldn't find a reply. There was something wrong with this person. Or rather, she was odd. She was a weirdo.
The girl came over to the bed and stopped at a distance that wasn't especially close, but was quite close enough to make Elaine tense.
"Let me guess... you're her little sister?"
Elaine said nothing. The girl tilted her head.
"Or are you Miss Raea's little lover?"
Elaine's expression changed at once, and a small edge of hostility came into the girl's gaze.
"No! You still haven't said who you are, barging into someone else's house like this."
Hearing that, the girl looked like someone who had been waiting to be asked.
She straightened instantly. The fine rain on her skirts ran down the fabric and onto the floorboards, so quietly it was almost inaudible.
"Very well. This young lady will introduce herself first. Fair warning, try not to jump when you hear my name."
She paused.
"Viola Rosenfeld. Have you heard the surname?"
At the introduction something in Elaine's head gave a hum.
Rosenfeld. Of course she had heard the surname.