Chapter 10: First Snow and Donuts

Back in the storeroom, I sat down at the desk out of sheer habit. Two weeks of throwing myself into the language had already settled into routine, it seemed.

I flipped idly through the collection of plays and rustled the pages of the dictionary. As expected. The letters refused to settle before my eyes.

"Hah."

A sigh escaped me.

Only moments ago, this two-story house had been a truly warm place. The warmth of the bedding, the bleak drift of snow beyond the glass, the fragrance of bread and the sweet edge of marmalade—warmth that had arrived without warning. Before I knew it, my heart had gone soft and melted.

Then the gaze.

That gaze, cold enough to freeze, had put everything back the way it was.

Thinking on it, how many times had I actually spoken with Dorothy over these past two weeks? Study or idle chatter, it hardly mattered—Benjamin and I had traded a fair amount of talk, helped along by the fact that his study sat right beside the storeroom. Dorothy's room, though, was on the first floor. And unlike Benjamin, who lived like a man of leisure, she was a soldier who came and went with the hours of her post. There had simply been few chances to speak to her at all.

That was not the whole of it. Dorothy seemed to be keeping from speaking to me on purpose. Even when we ate together she said nothing, and on the rare occasions we passed in the house she only glanced at my eyes and went on.

At first I had taken it for her nature—an indifference to everything. Set beside nicknames like winter beauty and automata, and Benjamin's claim that strip the frost from Dorothy and what remained was a corpse, it was the most reasonable conclusion.

But what mattered was not the truth.

It was the gaze.

A moment ago, Dorothy's eyes—as if they could see straight through to the marrow of my bones—had called back a fact I had been slowly letting myself forget. I was not a member of this household. She was a soldier, and someone who could turn me in whenever she chose.

"......"

For some reason I felt hollow. I knew it was an utterly meaningless worry, and still I went on worrying.

To shake the thoughts loose I opened the book again—a collection of plays by some playwright supposedly famous in the Federation. The pages turned with a dry rustle, and the one that lay open held a simple illustration beside a block of prose. By now the Frauvian alphabet, and even the basic vocabulary, were growing familiar, and between last night's study and this morning's I could parse the lines written out in prose with only a little concentration.

The plot ran thus. A man and a woman love each other, and are also full of misunderstandings. She is the daughter of a noble house, living in a mansion; he is a lowly coachman. They do not even know one another's names, and after a meeting like fate they fall into a love like a fairy tale. But the woman approaches him with a certain recklessness, and he becomes tangled in the sordid affairs of noble society. At once she convinces herself that he will come to loathe her, and flees into hiding. Realizing this, the man is thrown into agony. And in his agony, he sings.

I recited the coachman's final declaration slowly, in my clumsy way. When the last of the sentence rolled off the tip of my tongue, I found I was already on my feet.

"What am I doing, sitting here moping."

The worries that had been tangling my head until a moment ago began, all at once, to look small. The lives the playwright had set down were more dramatic than mine, and still those characters rose and acted in the end. Why should I be the one who could not?

I climbed carefully onto the desk and opened the window. It creaked. If Benjamin caught me, there would be trouble, so I eased it open until the sound died away. The snow had thickened just in time. Great flakes were blotting out the view, falling hard enough that no one would notice a person crawling out a window.

"Hup."

I slipped out through the window.

And then—

I drew out the spellbook and pictured it: myself stepping lightly up onto the roof. Imagination became reality at once. A low rush of air, and then a soft thud as I landed. About fifteen minutes had passed since Dorothy left, I thought. She could not have gone far. I would follow, and I would ask what that gaze had meant. Glory to the one who acts. So I told myself, taking the heavy snow full in the face.

"...Oh?"

Wait. I had just been thinking in Frauvian. It seemed I would be able to startle Benjamin even more than I had expected.

I found Dorothy sooner than I had thought.

"There she is."

The familiar back of a dress uniform moved ahead of me through the snow.

An alley lay between the falling flakes. In a gap when no one was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠looking, I came down off the roof and, as casually as I could manage, began to follow her.

"Tailing her wasn't part of the plan, but..."

I was going to ask her anyway. It would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do no harm to learn, while I was at it, why she had gone out. It was absolutely not because the sight of that back made me hesitate to speak. In any case, I walked slowly after her. Ten minutes of it.

"This road..."

Dorothy, and I behind her, had somehow come into the quarter of the Federal Army garrison. So she really was on her way to duty? Some outing that was. My faith in Benjamin's remark was just beginning a steep decline when Dorothy turned aside—one block short of the garrison's main gate, left off the main road, into a street that was oddly lively. I did not know the ground this close to the garrison well enough to guess where she was bound. There was nothing for it but to follow. Step by step, I turned after her and entered the street.

In that instant I felt the bottom drop out. This was a place I should not have come.

Gazes. Gazes. Gazes.

The moment my foot touched the street, no small number of eyes gathered on me. They had things in common. First, every one of them belonged to a Frauvian. And not one of them held anything that could be called welcome, even as an empty courtesy. Hostility. Or disgust. Even plain disregard. Man and woman, old and young, gazes heavy with some dark feeling stabbed down at me. It was a wretched sensation, though the fault was also mine for failing to see where I was.

This was a shopping district—a high-end one, merchants and customers alike all people of the Federation. Once I understood that, the meaning of the stares was easy to read. I have a mark that does not wash off. Even now, in the decent clothes Benjamin had bought me, scrubbed clean enough that my appearance was tidy, there remained a sign of imperial birth I could not erase. Ash-gray hair. With their eyes they were saying it plainly. Get out. Imperial.

"Ha."

A hollow laugh escaped me. I hadn't even known a district like this existed here, and yet the mere act of setting foot in it had brought stares this blatant. I walked on regardless. If I lost Dorothy now, I would be in trouble. The looks grew a little sharper, but there was one thing they overlooked: imperials living under the rule of the Federation's military do not so much as flinch at a threat delivered by the eyes alone. What is there to fear in a gaze that will never become a fist? Soon enough those eyes lost interest in me. So did I. This was the moment to watch Dorothy's steps more closely.

The first shop she entered was a clothier's. She stared through the display so long that the proprietor spoke to her.

"Welcome, Officer! Is there something you're looking for?"

"......"

"Officer?"

"......"

"If you would at least tell me what sort of clothing..."

"......"

Dorothy met every question with silence, went into the shop, and a little later came out empty-handed. The small bag she carried showed no sign of having grown any fuller. Had she only been looking? The next shop was a clothier's as well, and it went the same way: she went inside, remained a while, and in the end emerged with nothing. If her expression had shifted at all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I might have inferred something from it, but Dorothy moved on without the slightest change in her face. After that she stopped at several more clothing shops. She stood blankly for a time in a shop that dealt in staves. Then she turned toward a bakery.

By then I was thoroughly chilled. I had come out thinking thick indoor clothes would be enough, but the falling snow had made it a good deal colder than usual. The tailing had borne little fruit, and I had followed her too deep into the shopping street. Ask Dorothy what the gaze had meant, then go back and study—that was the thought crossing my mind.

"Hey. Gray-haired brat."

Thwack. Someone rapped the top of my head with a staff. It was utterly sudden. I turned and shot a glare at the owner of the staff.

"......"

"Well, look at those eyes."

He was a middle-aged man who looked, at a glance, respectable. Beside him stood a woman of similar years, and three siblings around my own age, huddled together. Had the whole family come out to see the snow? It hardly mattered. What mattered was that I had been struck on the head out of nowhere. The intent to humiliate me was far too transparent. I put on the most bored expression I could manage and turned to face him. At a moment like this, I must not look rude. That was exactly what he wanted. I opened my mouth—in a tone polite past all reason for someone who had just been hit on the head, shaping a Frauvian accent as best my clumsy tongue allowed.

"Is something the matter, sir?"

"......Hm?"

"Raising a staff to the height of a person's eyes does not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠look particularly becoming."

The man was visibly thrown.

"Brat. Who told you to stand up so straight? Can't you see what's around you? Everyone is staring at that gray hair of yours."

"I would be grateful if you stated your point clearly."

"An imperial brat, talking back! This is a shopping district for citizens of the Federation alone. Who said you could walk in as you please? Get out!"

He raised his voice. Shouting at a sixteen-year-old was no small disgrace, and yet the surprising thing was how many of the people around him agreed.

"That's right. Why haven't you left already?"

"It's been reeking of the gutter since a while ago."

"The class of this place has fallen. I can't bear it."

It was only natural that his shoulders swelled. His wife and three children took on a smug air as well, and the children's eyes were even sparkling.

"......"

I had expected something of the sort. The man must have meant to use me to become a dashing father—a charismatic one, who had handsomely driven off a barbaric imperial. I had resisted. In the end it had gone according to his scheme. The family was harmonious. The people around them were of one mind.

"Get the hell out!"

Everyone but me.

A deep sigh slipped out of me. Nothing I did here would change a thing. The point of coming out had already faded, and I was no longer in the mood to stand and listen to a chorus ordering me gone. Cast a spell and simply fly off into the sky? Entertaining that idle fancy, I lifted my foot. More precisely, I was about to.

"Eugene."

A woman stood there in a green officer's dress uniform.

"Are you all right?"

Dorothy Oslo cupped my cheeks in both her hands.