Mage!
She sounded utterly incredulous.
Nice going, Jenice! Quick, say no. And tell her to wake me up—I want to get up. I flailed about for all I was worth.
"Our little niece here is outright asking to be held, it seems. Looks like I'd better lie down as well."
The more I moved, the further the interpretation strayed from anything I'd actually intended. My voice would not come, and even movement was not freely mine.
Somebody, please, just once—read my mind.
"Of course. Children grow up on the warmth of other people's bodies, you know."
"Really? That's incredible, Lady Chyo."
Jenice, don't get swept up in that ridiculous logic. I did not conquer loneliness by snuggling into people's body heat—I conquered it by plotting revenge!
But contrary to my wishes, Jenice swallowed Chyo's logic hook, line, and sinker.
"I'd better let her know I'm right here beside her, too."
Jenice and Chyo jostled with each other over who would take my hand. Having settled herself back into place, Chyo clasped my hand tight and patted me with her free one.
An awkward, work-roughened palm drummed steadily against my belly, and strange as it was, a curious sense of contentment welled up under that touch.
"Diana, your aunt is right here. You're not alone. I'll stay by your side until you wake up, so sleep as long as you like."
This is not what I meant.
"I'm here too, my lady," Jenice cut in, not about to be outdone.
"I-I'm here as well," Rebert added.
"You've got me on report so I can't even set foot outside, and now you plan to just lie there? I'm bored out of my skull here. I'll be at your side until you wake up, so hurry up and get better and entertain me."
"You swindler!" Chyo called to Loomdrax in a low voice. That one short phrase seemed to carry every curse in the book.
"What did I do?" I could hear Loomdrax strutting about, deliberately baiting her.
And honestly, that one needs to grow up. How am I supposed to sleep with all this racket going on?
Nobody had noticed I was conscious. My body was still a dead weight, as if it weighed a thousand pounds; no words would come, and there was nothing I could do.
I had no choice but to sleep, then. And yet I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something terribly important. What was it?
"I suppose even our lady has her days of throwing a tantrum."
"Act grown-up all she likes, she's still a child."
My body clearly did want sleep; the tender voices washed over me as my consciousness dimmed.
I am not throwing a tantrum. And I am not a little kid. Voicing rebuttals no one else could hear, I sank into sleep.
And I woke again with an enormous realization.
"A mage!"
My eyes flew open. What I'd been forgetting came flooding back, and I bolted upright in bed.
"My lady! Are you all right? You're not dizzy, or queasy, or hurting anywhere, are you?"
Jenice came sliding in at a run, a towel dripping water in her hand—and a trail of drips marked the floor along the exact path she'd taken.
"Jenice! It's a mage!"
"My lady, I asked if you're all right!"
Jenice and I stared at each other, each saying exactly what we pleased.
I was impatient, but I could well imagine how badly Jenice must have been frightened, having watched me collapse with her own eyes—after all, I had been beside myself when Cassion went down.
First things first: calm Jenice down.
"Jenice, I'm fine!"
"My lady, what do you mean, a mage?"
And then we talked over each other yet again.
"Pfft."
The laugh burst out before I could stop it. Jenice narrowed her eyes at me. I suppose I did look a little strange, waking from a dead faint and immediately demanding a mage through my giggles.
"Jenice, I'll speak first this time."
We had settled on an order so our words wouldn't trip over each other again: me first, then you. Jenice nodded.
"I'm not in any pain. It's all thanks to your devoted nursing. Thank you, everyone."
"How did you know we'd been nursing you?"
Jenice's eyes went round.
Because I'd heard all the commotion you made, crowded around me, when I briefly came to—but even without that, it wasn't hard to guess.
"Jenice, that thing in your hand—it's not the wet towel for my forehead, is it?"
"It is not. This one's for wiping your face. You're absolutely grimy, my lady. You collapsed without so much as a wash for two whole days."
Well. Whether it went on my head or wiped my face, nursing was nursing. My guess had been proved magnificently wrong, but no matter.
"With a towel that's dripping wet?"
Still, picturing her dragging that sopping towel across my face was dreadful. The entire bed would end up soaked.
"Oh dear! You woke up and I was in such a rush that I brought the wet towel over just as it was. I'll put it away right now. But my lady, you really are all right, aren't you?"
Jenice asked, dashing off toward the washbasin.
"Just what you see."
Meaning: in perfect health.
"But my lady, what's this about a mage?"
Jenice, having deposited the towel in the basin, said as she looked me up and down.
Knock, knock.
Just then, a knock sounded from beyond the door, along with the stir of someone outside.
"That'll be Rebert, I expect. What timing."
What's gotten into Rebert?
At my slight nod, Jenice darted over and opened the door. The moment it swung wide, the bitter reek of medicine rolled through the room.
"My lady? My lady, are you all right!"
Rebert practically sprinted across the room. He was moving so fast, in fact, that I worried the cup of medicine in his hand might slosh over.
Rebert's gaze locked onto my forehead. He looked desperate to check whether I was running a fever—but with a medicine tray in his hands, he could do nothing of the sort and floundered in place.
All this fuss over one fainting spell. To show them with my own two feet that nothing was wrong with me, I climbed out of bed.
Jenice and Rebert watched my every move with the eyes of hawks. If I so much as stumbled here by accident, they looked ready to keep me bedridden for days on end.
I slowly planted my feet on the floor and pushed myself up. And at that precise moment—of all the moments!—my head went and spun.
I abandoned the attempt and flopped back down onto the mattress.
"My lady!"
Jenice and Rebert cried out in unison.
"Rebert, set the tray down and listen to my symptoms."
With a genius physician standing right there, even being ill held no fear. Rebert handed the tray off to Jenice, then knelt on the floor before me.
"You could at least pull up a chair."
Rebert only stayed kneeling where he was, gazing up at me with pleading eyes. The worry brimming in them was impossible to miss.
"Where does it hurt, my lady? And how? May I check your temperature?"
When I nodded, Rebert rubbed his palms briskly over his thighs, then gently laid a hand against my forehead.
"There's no fever... none that I can find, my lady. Where and how does it hurt?"
Examining me, Rebert settled into calm.
"The instant my feet touched the ground, it felt as if I were floating in midair. Then my head spun in circles, and though I haven't eaten a thing, my stomach is queasy."
Rebert turned his gaze into the middle distance and muttered to himself for a long while—no doubt cross-referencing my symptoms against the medicinal herbs he knew.
Before long, he sprang to his feet.
"I'll prepare the medicine at once."
Rebert bolted from the room before my reply had even finished. Something must have met with his shoulder on the way out, because a tremendous clatter followed him.
"A man slow as a turtle any other day turns quick as lightning the moment it concerns you, my lady. Oh, but my lady—those symptoms of yours. They're exactly like the motion sickness you had that time you traveled by boat."
"A boat? Motion sickness?"
"Yes," Jenice said, easing me back against the pillows.
Now that she mentioned it, I did remember. At ten years old, I had tagged along after my father on an inspection tour of the fief across the sea and very nearly died of seasickness.
"You suffered terribly back then, with no medicine to be had. Thank goodness Rebert's here this time."
"True. Thank goodness for Rebert. And no more dreading sea voyages, either... Ah!"
Somewhere in the exchange, a brilliant idea had struck me—one so electrifying it could sweep a headache clean away!
"Jenice! Bring Rebert back!"
I shot upright in my excitement, the room tilted, and I grabbed the headboard. Eyes squeezed shut, I issued my order to Jenice.
I tried to sit myself at my desk to seize that glittering idea—and failed, because Jenice had planted herself firmly in the way: a proper meal had to come first, and she would not be moved.
In the end I yielded to her pestering and sat down not at my desk, but at the dining table.
"This is... breakfast?"
I clicked my tongue at the array of dishes spread out before me: a grotesque-looking sea-creature dish said to spring even a fallen ox back onto its feet, an entire chicken far too much for the morning hour, and row upon row of unidentifiable plant roots.
"Yes, my lady. Our house physician, Dr. Dallas, says you collapsed this time from malnutrition. And that's how it looks to me too. Your face has gone all gaunt—so from now on I'll have to feed you properly, the way a growing child ought to eat."
Jenice was wrong from start to finish.
First of all, I was not malnourished. Not that a patient diagnosing herself counts for much, but what I had was accumulated fatigue, plain and simple—malnutrition was impossible. Even without a spread this extravagant, the Ehrenberg table had always erred on the side of excess.
And my cheeks were not gaunt.
Did I somehow shed a day's worth of flesh overnight? Uneasy, I looked down at my arms and hands. Still plump with baby fat, they were as round as ever. My cheeks could hardly be any different.
And finally—eat plenty, like a child? This was nothing like a child's menu! One glance was enough to tell that today's breakfast was a spread fit only for elderly villains dreaming of eternal life.
"My lady, the food's going cold. Eat up."
Jenice ladled the dishes onto a plate with her own hands and passed it over.
"Yesterday Rebert drove the poor chef half out of his mind, from morning to night."
"Rebert did?"
"Yes. It was the first time I'd ever seen him speak to someone looking them square in the eye. He kept at it—told him to take good care of your meals from now on—and Cooker bore it remarkably well, for a man of his temper. I suppose your collapse came as a shock to him too."
Cooker had served as the Ehrenberg chef for a very long time. From entering the kitchen as a boy assistant to rising to head chef of the house, the effort and passion he'd shown along the way were nothing short of tremendous.
And his cooking was every bit as fine as that journey implied. Like all chefs who truly master their craft, moreover, his pride brooked no equal. Unless you were direct family of Ehrenberg, even so much as commenting on his food was forbidden.
Anyone outside the direct line who dared pick at Cooker's cooking was out.
Once, Bella had whined over his food that it wasn't sweet, and Cooker declared he would never make her dessert again. True to his word, from that day forward, no dessert ever appeared whenever Bella came to call.
And yet that same Cooker had listened quietly to Rebert and laid out a table like this? Rebert daring to lecture anyone was astonishing enough; Cooker's transformation was more astonishing still.
"As for Dr. Dallas, he's shut himself up in the laboratory, determined to name your illness, and won't come out."
"Dallas? In a laboratory?"
It was as startling as news that a hen had marched itself into a lion's den.
Medicine was not a field that transformed every time you blinked, churning out fresh breakthroughs by the day. The medical knowledge that actually served daily life was limited to begin with, so most physicians let their studies lapse once they'd climbed to a certain level.
Dallas was a good doctor, but an ordinary one—which was precisely why Rebert, who researched and experimented without pause, shone all the brighter beside him. But Dallas, entombed in a laboratory? In all my years as an Ehrenberg, I had never once heard of such a thing.
"Lady Chyo stayed by your side until you woke, too. Her people came to fetch her any number of times, and every time she flew into a rage and drove them off."
Chyo was a woman who proclaimed that time was money. And that woman had given a whole day to my bedside.
I really have been a burden on everyone around me.
Guilt welled up in me.
"What are you saying!"
Jenice jumped as if stung.
"The fault is mine, for not looking after you properly. We've all had a good, hard think about it this time. You're so clever, and so capable on your own, that we keep forgetting—you're still a child with a long way left to grow."
Jenice's eyes went glassy at the corners. The tip of my nose stung in sympathy, and I hurriedly raised my spoon. Jenice pulled tender meat from a chicken thigh simmered soft over long hours and set it on the spoon.
"You have to eat plenty. And chew every bite properly."
Goodness. With care this wholehearted, I hardly knew where to put myself.
It struck me quite suddenly how happy I was. To have this many people around me who cherished me so dearly.
In my past life, I'd known none of it—clinging instead to the false affection Count Kolkos and Dayson doled out.
If only I had looked around me, just a little.
Then I might have told true affection from false.
And I never would have mounted the steps of a guillotine.
So I would treasure what I had. I set about the chicken thigh Jenice had stripped for me with a will.
The meal stretched on and on. There was simply so much food—and then there was the tug-of-war between me, refusing to touch the strange roots, and Jenice, bound and determined that I would.
In the end I accepted her argument: Cooker had gone to such pains, so the least I could do was taste it. Thus the table was cleared, the roots—mostly bitter, with a strange sweetness lingering at the finish—served as the final course.
Next came dessert. Today it was a tart of candied peach.
I didn't usually indulge in dessert, but a tart was non-negotiable!
Seeing my eyes gleam, Jenice broke into a contented smile.
"My lady—what was it you were about to say earlier? The thing about a mage."