Allen hadn't actually caught how the Demon King finished that last sentence.
All he remembered was that after the mass of darkness closed again, the whole hall fell silent once more. The silence was heavy, like a transparent stone slab pressing on his chest. He leaned against the stone pillar, the back of his head resting on the cold stone, breathing in ragged gasps. The images from before were still jumping around in his head like an old television nobody had switched off. The alley, the sea, the stranger's back, and those red eyes. The more he thought about them, the sicker he felt.
He tried to lay those images over the Demon King's words and piece together some coherent logic. The same soul, different worlds, counterpart. He knew every one of those words, but strung together they sounded like the ravings of someone else's madness. He raised his left hand and pressed the back of it to his forehead. His hand was cold, and his forehead was colder. He closed his eyes for a moment and told himself not to think too much for now. What mattered most right now was figuring out where exactly he was, and whether he still had any chance of running.
But he couldn't even stand up.
His right shoulder was strapped in place with cloth, and the whole arm felt as if it didn't belong to him. His left leg was a little better, but a spot just above the knee had swollen too, and a light press sent a jolt of pain through it. He looked down. His pant leg had a tear in it, and the skin underneath had gone purple, as if something blunt had struck it from the side. He had no memory at all of when he'd been hurt. Maybe he'd hit something falling out of that place called the "Interstice." Maybe the purple lines of light had cut into him. Maybe it had happened even earlier. He didn't know. Right now he knew almost as little about his own body as he did about this place.
He took a deep breath, braced his left hand on the bench, and slowly turned himself around. His right shoulder hurt so much his vision went dark, but he gritted his teeth and didn't make a sound. By the time he was finally sitting up straight, his forehead was covered in sweat and his hair was plastered wetly to his face. Only then did he notice that his hair seemed a little longer than before, with a few strands hanging down to his chin. He frowned and tucked the hair behind his ear. Even he froze for a second after doing it. It had been too natural. So natural it made him feel a little nauseous.
"If you're awake, don't move around."
A woman's voice came from behind him.
Allen went rigid all over. Just as he was about to turn his head, he felt a breeze on the back of his neck first. Not a real breeze, but the faint stir of the air when someone draws near. A light fragrance drifted over along with it, like some flower that blooms at night, cool and not at all heavy, yet it made Allen's temples tighten.
He slowly turned his head.
Two women were standing five or six paces away from him. One on the left, one on the right, as if by arrangement, stepping out of the shadows on either side of the hall. The one on the left had long silvery white hair, perfectly straight, falling past her waist. She wore a long deep red dress with a short black cape over it, the collar fastened meticulously. Her face was white, too white to belong to the living, and her lips had little color, but her eyes were red. A very pale red, like the setting sun in winter, cold as ice. She looked at Allen the way one looks at something that hasn't yet passed inspection.
The one on the right had pinkish-purple hair, curled tightly and piled in a fluffy mass on her shoulders. She wore a long dark purple dress with a deeply plunging neckline, a very fine chain cinched at her waist with a few dark stones dangling from it. Her eyes were gold, so bright they looked almost fake, like a cat's eyes catching the light at night. She wasn't nearly as stern as the one on the left. Quite the opposite: she was staring right at Allen, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly, as if she'd discovered something fun.
Allen's breath caught.
Not because they were beautiful. Though they really were beautiful to an almost unreal degree. It was more that the moment they appeared, the air around him had noticeably changed. Pressure. The kind of pressure an animal in the forest feels when it suddenly hears the footsteps of a predator, the kind the body reacts to before the mind does. Allen felt as if someone were holding his spine down from behind, and most of the strength to even lift his hand drained away.
"Oh my, he really is awake." The woman on the right spoke first. Her voice was soft and light, its ending curling up like a hook, so that he couldn't tell whether she was pleased or teasing. She took a step forward, her golden eyes roving over Allen. "Your color's much better than yesterday. Your face was so white yesterday, I honestly thought you weren't going to make it."
Yesterday. Something stirred in Allen's chest. He'd already been lying here for a day. Had he slept that long? Or had he passed out again somewhere in between?
"Vivian." The silver-haired woman on the left spoke. Her voice was far colder than the pink-haired woman's, like ice water dripping from a crack in the rock, each word short and precise. "Don't get so close. His aura is still unstable."
"I know, I know, Big Sister." The pink-haired woman waved a hand with a smile and stepped back. But her gaze never left Allen, as if she were watching to see whether a little animal she'd just brought home might suddenly bite.
Allen swallowed and asked hoarsely, "And who are you two?"
The pink-haired woman blinked and tapped a finger against her chin. "Oh, right, we haven't introduced ourselves yet. I'm Vivian. This is Vera. As for us... I suppose we're sort of like your big sisters."
"Don't talk nonsense." Vera frowned, though she wasn't really angry. She looked at Allen and was silent for a moment before going on. "We are here on the Demon King's orders to look after you. For the time being, your daily needs and your lessons will be our responsibility."
Allen's heart sank. Lessons. Daily needs. Responsibility. Each word sounded worse than the last. He hadn't come here to go to school, and he hadn't come here to board. He didn't know anyone, and yet everything about him had been neatly arranged. He opened his mouth to say "I don't need you to be responsible for me," but the words stuck and he swallowed them back down. Because right now he really couldn't even take care of himself. His right shoulder was swollen, his left leg was purple, and he couldn't stand steadily. If these two didn't look after him, he might not even make it out of this hall.
"Where am I, exactly?" He changed the question, and even he could hear the forced toughness in his voice.
"The Demon King's Castle," Vera said. She answered quickly and evenly, as if naming some perfectly ordinary place, without the slightest concern for what those words might mean to Allen.
"The Demon King's Castle..." Allen repeated, feeling as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over his head. He'd still been clinging to a sliver of hope that maybe he'd just landed in some strange country, where at worst he couldn't speak the language and the customs were different. But the words "Demon King's Castle" tore away the last shred of self-deception he had.
"Not the kind of Demon King you're thinking of from the stories, you know." Vivian chimed in with a smile, as if she could see what he was thinking. "It's not like we go around killing and burning every day. There are maids, there's a garden, there's afternoon tea. Stay a while and you might even come to like it."
Allen said nothing. He looked down at his hands. His fingertips were a little pale, and there was still some dried blood under his nails. He didn't know what to say. Like it? How could he possibly. All he wanted was to go home.
"Get up first," Vera said. She walked toward Allen, her steps very light, her heels making almost no sound on the stone floor. Before Allen could react, she was already standing in front of him, bending down and holding out a hand. Her hand was very white, with long slender fingers and very faint lines on the palm, as if carved from marble. Allen hesitated, then placed his left hand in hers.
Her fingers were very cold. It was like Allen had grabbed a railing in the dead of winter.
Vera barely used any strength to pull him up off the bench. Allen stood with great difficulty, and his right shoulder hurt so much he sucked in a sharp breath. Vera didn't support him; she simply watched him, as if waiting for him to steady himself. Vivian came over and held up his left arm from the other side, saying with a bright smile, "Don't be scared. If you really can't stand, just say so, and Big Sister will carry you on her back."
"No need." Allen's face was stiff as he forced himself to stand up straight.
Vivian let out a "pfft" of laughter and exchanged a look with Vera. Vera didn't laugh, only said flatly, "As long as you can stand, that's good. Tonight we'll take you to where you'll be staying. Starting tomorrow, you'll learn etiquette and basic mana."
When Allen heard the word "etiquette," his frown deepened. He didn't know what the Demon King was trying to do. Keeping him shut up in the castle, and bringing in two people to teach him. As if trying to raise a stray cat to guard the house. But he didn't ask anything more. He knew that even if he asked, these two wouldn't tell him the real answer. The man sitting on that throne hadn't given him a single complete answer from start to finish. All he could do was go along for now and wait for a chance.
"Let's go." Vera let go of his hand and turned, walking toward one side of the hall.
Allen took a step, and his left leg buckled, nearly pitching him straight back down. Vivian was quick and caught hold of him, letting out an "Oh my" as though she were protecting a handful of water that was about to spill. Allen was half supported and half dragged along by her, irritated and too weak to do anything about it. He turned his head and saw the candles on the other side of the hall dimming one after another, as if a hand were gathering up the light behind them as they passed. Up ahead, Vera wasn't walking fast, her silver hair flickering light and dark in the dark red firelight, like a quiet river.
He followed reluctantly, his head a jumbled mess. The Demon King's Castle. Two Queens. And tomorrow he had to learn some sort of etiquette and mana. Everything seemed to be crashing down on him from the sky, pounding him until he couldn't tell which way was up. He looked down at the tips of his feet. One foot was wearing a shoe, and the other, at some point, had gone bare, its heel very white, as if it hadn't seen the sun in a long time.
How he wished this really were a dream.
But the pain from his right shoulder, the cold from Vera's fingertips, the fragrance drifting from Vivian, were all too real. So real that he couldn't even fool himself.