Chapter 47
It was a cold thing to say, especially to the brother who had spent his whole life trying to become even one sliver more worthy than the one before him.
But Heston was often like that. He judged the world by his own measure. Keeping up with him, he would say, was only natural; it wasn’t all that difficult. Most people did judge others by the yardstick they carried inside themselves, of course, but with Heston, the problem was the sheer loftiness of that standard.
He always faced the world with devotion, honesty, and diligence, and in doing so, he had carved his presence into it. Lewes, who could never hope to match Heston in that regard, had chosen another way to prove his worth: by throwing himself more loyally than anyone else into the aristocratic political world, where responsibility was dodged, flattery paved the road, and people survived by maneuvering.
Sylvia remembered the time Heston, worried about Lewes clinging only to the Crown Prince and behaving almost like his dog, had sternly warned him that betting everything on one person was a dangerously foolish thing to do.
Back then, Lewes had been staggering from the liquor he’d been forced to drink because of the Crown Prince, and he had dismissed Heston’s concern with absolute certainty. Then he had grabbed his brother by the collar and shouted, with something near rage, that even if Heston thought he wasn’t acting like a proper marquis’s son, this was in fact what a real marquis’s son did. Heston, in other words, was just living however the hell he pleased.
Sylvia didn’t particularly like Lewes either, but now and then, when she watched him, she found herself feeling sorry for the frantic desperation beneath his behavior.
Still, the one she worried about now was Heston, not Lewes. He kept insisting that this was Lewes’s burden to bear, but the fact that he lived on headache medicine told its own story. It was obvious Heston would find this difficult.
“Maybe it’d be better to let him know beforehand. It’s better than hearing it in the newspaper.”
“Whatever I do, he’ll find some way to take offense at it. I’d rather not provoke him any more than I have to.”
Heston raised a hand, as if to say they should drop the matter there. And then, as though he had been waiting for precisely that moment, someone knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
Without even saying who it was, Heston gave permission for the visitor to enter. Sylvia turned, wondering who it could be that Heston would be so casual, and then she quietly opened her mouth at the familiar face that stepped through the door.
“Owen?”
“Yeah. I called you here because I had something to say.”
When Owen saw Sylvia’s drained expression, he shrugged as if to say this wasn’t his fault. Heston, utterly unruffled, motioned for Owen to take a seat. Sylvia, trapped in this awkward reunion, felt as though the lunch she’d just eaten had settled like a stone in her stomach.
A meeting with Owen and Heston, all three of them in one room.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet the mere thought of being forced to face this situation made her want to run screaming from it. Meeting Owen in front of Heston was terrible. Meeting Heston in front of Owen was just as terrible. She hated both possibilities with equal intensity.
Suddenly her hand began to itch, and she scratched at the back of it furiously. Meanwhile, Heston and Owen were exchanging a perfectly ordinary conversation.
“Are you feeling better?”
“You’re asking me that only now? I’ve been busy.”
“I’m sorry. For dragging a patient out like this.”
“It’s fine. Still, there was no need to drag a priest here too just to treat me. The bill for the treatment—did you pay it?”
“Of course I did. I had to do at least that much. We’re friends.”
That last word landed squarely on her chest.
“Friends,” it echoed in her head. “Friends... friends...”
In truth, Owen and Sylvia were only friends of friends, and since each of them related to one another through Heston, Sylvia had no way of knowing how Owen and Heston spoke when they were alone together.
In other words, the three of them rarely ever ended up in the same place.
Owen often stayed for months at a time when Heston invited him to the ducal residence in the capital, since he had no home there of his own, but even when Sylvia went to visit the ducal house where Owen happened to be staying, she almost never actually ran into him.
Listening to the two of them talk now, all three together at last, she felt some indefinable self-loathing clamp around her throat.
What on earth had she done? She had fallen in love with Heston for years, and now she had gone and done this to Owen too.
If Heston ever found out everything, Sylvia couldn’t even begin to imagine how much he would despise her. If someone learned that the person they liked had slept with their one and only friend, Sylvia knew she would think that person was a slimy, miserable freak.
Me too? And now my friend too? What, did you sleep with him while thinking about me?
The very idea of Heston looking at her with disgust made it feel as though her soul were being wrung out like a wet rag. Just then, seeing the look on her face, Heston spoke with obvious concern.
“What’s wrong? Is it because I called Owen here without warning? I just thought you two seemed close lately...”
“Who said we’re close!”
The words burst out of her before she could stop them. Immediately afterward, Sylvia grimaced in embarrassment and raised a hand to cover her face. Heston’s eyes widened as if he had not expected her to raise her voice, and he looked to Owen in confusion.
“Did you two fight?”
“No idea. I guess we did.”
Even Owen’s languid reply made her want to bury her face in a pillow and die. Heston, as he did only around close friends, gave a brief laugh and lightly teased her.
“Then it must’ve been your fault, Owen. Women are always mad at you.”
“As if you’d be any better. I’m a very gentle person.”
“You are gentle, but... you do tend to invite misunderstandings.”
“Maybe. But Sylvia said I was kind and sweet.”
“Kh.”
Sylvia choked on nothing at all. She flailed an arm and fixed Owen with a look sharp enough to cut.
“Sorry, but I think I should go. I ditched my report halfway through and came here, and I still have to go see my father later.”
Using an obligation she had never even made as an excuse to slip away was a thoroughly cowardly trick. Yet strangely, Heston did not do what he usually would and apologize for taking up her time. He said nothing, only looked at her steadily. Sylvia thought she knew every expression on his face, but this was one she had never seen before.
Wondering if she had done something wrong, she blinked, and Heston finally turned away.
“Fine. The reason I called you here today is that, after the tower completion ceremony, the Duke of Araspe said he would very much like to invite both Sylvia and you, Owen, to the banquet. The current evidence makes it almost certain that the duke allowed the Echevich delegation access to the tower. So it’s unlikely the false holy relic incident will be linked to Echevich. He wants to end this whole affair as nothing more than a grudge held by Courtney Merino.”
“A grudge?”
“Yes. Rumor has it she’s hated you for years. Supposedly you took away her chance to receive a scholarship at the academy. The Merino family was in debt back then, and they desperately needed that scholarship, but because of you they lost their chance to get ahead, and that bred resentment. They’re so desperate they’ve been investigating as far back as your school days.”
“So... is that...” Sylvia’s voice was thin and faint, but she did her best to keep it casual. Heston let out a quiet sigh.
Ever since he had heard that Courtney Merino was dead, he had been worrying about Sylvia. Merino had clearly been a criminal—an appalling woman who had drugged people in an attempt to blind Sylvia, a Posmata, and intended to kill everyone who went to the tower.
But Sylvia had a tender heart, and Merino had once been at her side as a child, even if only for a short time. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this would affect her more deeply than she wanted to admit.
Sylvia always did that with people she had once taken to heart: even if they had done something unforgivable and the relationship had been cut off for good, she would keep looking back, again and again, finding reasons to give them another chance. Maybe there was a reason for it. Maybe it wasn’t entirely their fault.
That was why, when it had been revealed that she was not a Mage but a Supporter, Heston had almost thought that was better. If she became a Mage, she would not simply be fighting monsters; she would be thrown into wars between people. That would surely destroy something deep in her soul.
Heston spoke to her in a low voice, as though rousing her from something.
“Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. I’m telling you that you don’t need to think about her at all. Do you understand?”
“Yeah.”
Owen watched Sylvia answer like a well-behaved student with a short sigh, and remembered what had happened a few days earlier. Sylvia had grabbed him and told him, You didn’t do anything wrong. It was Count Bronovich who was wrong.
So that’s something she learned from Heston.
He had been shaken so badly by a form of comfort she’d picked up from another man. He wasn’t offended. If anything, he found it a little amusing. Once Heston was removed from the equation, what would remain of Sylvia? And when he thought that the reassuring words he himself had once taught her might one day be used like this as well...
“Heston. Will you hand me one of those candies?”
Owen said it abruptly. Heston passed him the tin of candy sitting on the desk. Owen took out a violet candy, faintly tinted purple, and ate it, then offered one to Sylvia as well, but she refused.
As Owen carried the candy back across the desk to its original place, her refusal making him turn away, his arm was sharply scraped by the tip of a feather quill. But it was not Owen who gave a low groan and clutched his arm at the piercing pain.
“Ow.”
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