The Midnight Kidnapping
"Why did you stop mid-sentence? Someone else was supposed to have it, but somehow it ended up in my mother's hands. Is that the story?"
"...Perhaps."
"Could my mother have been connected to the Mermaid Kingdom?"
It was the only conclusion Bayul could reach. It seemed like a stretch, but the fact remained that his mother had possessed a ring that originally belonged to the Merfolk.
Quinn, however, was adamant.
"That can't be it. She must have come across it by chance. It's completely useless in human hands. Unless you're merfolk, you can't use it at all."
"You say use it. So it's not just a gemstone?"
"Now you're catching on."
Any further questions would inevitably deepen the conversation.
"Our deal was simple. You bring me the ring, and I tell you what I know. Peppering me with questions is a breach of contract."
"So you'll settle for simply seeing the ring first?"
"You're surprisingly persistent, aren't you?"
He was nothing like the rumors. His appearance matched them exactly, but his words and actions did not. Who would have thought that innocent-looking face could haggle like this?
"Have you always been like this?"
"Hard to say."
Bayul didn't quite know himself. Even he had found his own behavior strangely unfamiliar several times over the course of the day.
During the Ga Kingdom language class. When he confronted Jared in the dining hall. And just now, when he'd made his proposal to Quinn. None of it was something his old self could have imagined.
But I don't hate it.
He still felt anxious at times, even cowed, but Bayul liked who he was becoming. If he kept moving forward like this, perhaps one day he could stand as proud and radiant as Bail had. And then, maybe, his father would finally see him. That alone felt like the only gift Bayul could offer the twin he had lost.
"In any case, understood. For now, seeing the ring will suffice. If what you have is genuine, we can begin the deal again from there."
"You mean that? Truly?"
"I am not human. I swear it as a prince of the Mermaid Kingdom."
Suddenly, Quinn snapped his fingers.
What was that?
The moment Bayul puzzled over it, a single small droplet of water formed in midair. As if it had sprouted wings, it glided silently toward him.
"There's nothing to fear. It's only a token of the oath."
The transparent bead touched Bayul's forehead. The chill lasted only an instant before his head cleared and a strange, pleasant warmth spread through him. His body grew heavy and languid, and drowsiness crashed over him all at once.
"Oh dear. To be this frail..."
Just as Bayul was about to crumple to the floor, Quinn lunged forward and caught him in both arms.
"How are you this skinny?"
The unfamiliar sensation made him frown instinctively. He had never held another being in his life.
"Are humans always this light?"
After a moment's hesitation, Quinn carried Bayul to the bed and laid him down gently. On the sleeping boy's smooth forehead, a water-droplet sigil shimmered into light.
It was the Mark of the Oath — invisible to human eyes, and within the Mermaid Kingdom, a privilege reserved for royalty alone. Whoever bore the mark could not be treated carelessly by any merfolk, and the one who cast it became bound by an absolute obligation to keep their promise.
A tiny droplet, yes — but the power of the oath sealed within it was considerable. Exposed to it unprepared, someone with a constitution as frail as Bayul's would end up exactly like this: forced to rest for a while, just as he was now.
I couldn't bear to watch. Poor thing.
Something about the sight of the sleeping boy struck him as pitiable. Quinn was startled to find himself harboring such a feeling toward a human, but he quickly shook his head.
Only until the ring was found. Until then, he needed that boy.
Chapter 6 — The Midnight Abduction
Deep in the night, a velvet darkness settled over Carrington Academy. Between the tension and exhaustion of his first day, the Mark of the Oath Quinn had placed upon him, and a dinner skipped entirely, Bayul had slept like the dead — and it was just past midnight when uninvited guests slipped into his room.
Creeeak.
The moment the moon, so long veiled by clouds, shyly unveiled itself, Quinn's sharp ears caught the sound of a door opening.
What now?
Quinn spent most of his days bathed in coldness and contempt, but even for him, a situation like this was unfamiliar. Were they trying to make up for this morning's failure?
They really will try anything, won't they.
His patience had limits. He had never spared them out of affection — only out of sheer disinterest, because engaging with them could only end in a tedious mess.
Lay a hand on me, and I'll show you exactly what happens.
Just as Quinn resolved to make an example of the first fool who touched him, Bayul — dead to the world — stirred awake. Naturally, not of his own accord.
"Mmm..."
Beneath the moonlight filtering through the curtains, Bayul rubbed his eyes and sat up. And as if someone had been waiting for precisely that moment, a burlap sack swallowed him whole. He thrashed and squirmed in protest, but one person was hopelessly outmatched by many.
It wasn't me they were after? It was him?
The unexpected turn left Quinn dumbfounded. There were three intruders in all. Giggling among themselves as if this were tremendous fun, exchanging glances, they never once spared Quinn a glance. Hoisting the sack over a shoulder, they slipped swiftly out of the room.
What am I supposed to do about this?
Quinn froze, momentarily blank. Following them felt absurd — why should he? — but pretending he hadn't seen it left an unpleasant itch somewhere he couldn't name. If only Eli, who had shadowed him all day like a second shadow, were here. Unfortunately, he was entirely alone.
Should I go wake the fool upstairs?
He shook his head almost immediately. The boy had come up to greet him every single time their paths crossed, and every single time, Quinn had ignored him. What business did he have suddenly seeking him out first? He had no standing to.
Then what am I supposed to do?
As Quinn stared at the half-open door, irritation slowly kindled across his face. Come to think of it, the very fact that he was agonizing over this was ridiculous.
Why? Why should I care?
The boy was no subordinate of his, no obligation of his. Just a roommate he'd met for the first time today. The fact that the Eye of the Ocean might be in the boy's family's possession pricked at him slightly, but it was still unconfirmed.
He hadn't sensed a lie in the boy's eyes, but the boy was human all the same. Humans could not be trusted — that had always been Quinn's creed.
But what if it's true...?
What harm could possibly come to him, dragged off like luggage under the moonlight? And yet the memory of the boy's face — the way he'd collapsed into Quinn's arms and fallen asleep — kept surfacing, and it bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
Worse, the ringleader was Jared. The boys who took Bayul were lackeys Quinn knew all too well, and the only lunatic at the Academy deranged enough to attempt something this brazen was that one.
A coward who ran wild on his parents' name, with no sense of what lay ahead or behind. If it was him, there was no telling what vile prank he might commit — even if his target was the son of Duke Randert himself.
"Ugh. This is going to be a colossal pain."
In the end, Quinn climbed out of bed. The boy was frail enough as it was — if something happened to him, it would be Quinn, his roommate, who ended up exhausted and put-upon for no reason. The night air was still chill; if the boy caught a cold and coughed all night, how was anyone supposed to sleep through the racket?
Right. This is for my own sake. I'll just check on his condition and come back.
As Quinn stepped out of the dormitory room, deep furrows creased his brow.
"Release him."
At someone's command, the mouth of the tightly bound sack was loosed. Bayul, who had been dragged here half-asleep with no chance to resist, burst out the instant the sack opened, gasping for air.
"Haah!"
Unlike the pitch-black interior of the sack, the surroundings were fairly bright. As Bayul sat slumped and looked around, the first thing to enter his field of vision was a person's legs.
Who...?
They were not alone. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, he lifted his head and took stock of the faces around him. None were familiar — a disappointment. Fitting for the dead of night, they all wore nightclothes, but there was no need to ask whether they were Academy students.
"So it's you?"
Of the dozen or so students ringing Bayul, one boy — built like a bear, with a face like a weasel — loomed over him menacingly.
"So it's you?" Out of nowhere? What am I even supposed to answer to that?
Bayul only blinked in confusion, and the weasel's expression grew thinner and sharper.
"I said, are you the one called Bayul?"
"...Th-that would be me?"
At Bayul's timid reply, the weasel clicked his tongue.
"Just as I heard. To think a creature like you is the son of Duke Randert. I wouldn't believe it even if I saw it with my own eyes."
Bayul had heard that line at least a hundred times today alone. He'd been hauled here in his sleep without a clue why, unfairly as could be — and now he had to listen to it again. Something hot rose unbidden from deep inside him.
"And who might you be, sir? Where exactly is this, may I ask?"
"Me?"
The weasel pointed at himself with his index finger and smirked.
"Pierre Cochrane. Surely you've heard the name."
Pierre Cochrane?
The name meant nothing to him. Bayul shook his head, and Pierre pressed again.
"House Cochrane, barons of Charleferre. Even now, you don't know it?"
"No, sir."
He wasn't trying to mock him. Bayul genuinely had never heard the name. Was it a famous family?
Humiliation made Pierre's lips tremble, but he forced himself to keep his composure.
"I suppose being sickly and shut up inside your estate does leave a man ignorant. My house, for its part, has served His Imperial Majesty at his very side for generations. We have recorded His Majesty's every word and movement in the court annals, ever striving to aid the prosperity and stability of the Empire."
"...So you mean the imperial chroniclers?"
"Precisely."
Impressive, isn't it? Pride oozed from Pierre's face as he lifted his chin.
Bayul nodded. Among the services essential to the crown, chroniclers were indeed one. They recorded every matter that occurred within the royal household, and those records became the history of the Empire itself. It was, by any measure, vital work.
"Now that sounds like you're finally catching on."
Emboldened by what looked like acknowledgment, Pierre continued with satisfaction.
"This place is called the Crow's Nest. You might call it the secret hideout of us Stone Lions."
Us Stone Lions?
"You may or may not have noticed, but every one of us here is a Stone Lion student. Different year from you, of course."
"...You're seniors, then?"
"Correct. You wouldn't recognize it now with no emblems on, but we're all your seniors. I'm a fourth-year this year."
"Oh."
"Um... is that so."
Being smuggled in a burlap sack in the middle of the night was bad enough, and being ringed in a circle like this to manufacture dread gave him a distinctly bad feeling. Worse, neither Eli nor Aidan was here now. Could he really handle all of these people alone?