Chapter 166
The next day.
It was a weekday. I felt a little sorry for ruining the rest Victoria had meant to take over the weekend. Let us simply agree that Meriwether is the bad one.
The classroom.
Today, unlike usual, Victoria and I sat a good distance apart, and Meriwether took the seat beside me. She was beaming from ear to ear, which was ridiculous. Watching someone who knows nothing is rather entertaining. I do have to stay on my guard, though, so that I never become the one being laughed at.
It is easy to watch out for someone smarter than yourself. Watching out for someone stupider is hard.
For the record — last night.
Victoria arrived at the conclusion that Meriwether's very existence was strange. It was odd that, from the first day she saw her, the woman had felt like someone she had already been close to, and odd as well that no one paid her any particular attention. She even muttered that she still felt they were extremely close.
That said, I worry about how hard she drove her head into the wall. Of course, when one has fallen under some strange hypnosis, the usual thing is to strike one's head and wake — but a girl slamming herself into a wall like that is a bit much, isn't it...
At any rate, to all appearances my relationship with Victoria had gone to ruin. When morning classes ended I ate lunch, then sat through the afternoon classes, and the moment they were over I went straight back to the dormitory. I repeated the same day for several days.
Because nothing about me changed, Meriwether now and then wore a dissatisfied look, as if she felt things were not proceeding well. If I wished to dance to her tune, would it be enough to confide in her about falling out with Victoria? But if I mean to keep to my own standards, I cannot seek counsel about something that does not exist. I may tell only part of the truth, or give no answer at all — but I do not lie.
So I decided to do nothing at all. How will Meriwether take that? I am looking forward to the moment she can no longer bear the waiting and speaks to me. When that time comes, I will learn what Meriwether wants — and, beyond her, what the royal house wants.
Meanwhile, something curious happened to Victoria.
Polaris Valouin Bearington, a girl who held the station of a marquis's daughter, called Victoria aside. Unexpectedly, Meriwether did not seem particularly interested in Victoria herself, and paid it no mind.
In this country they have investigated Harvesters quite thoroughly enough. They conducted human experiments that honored human rights, and experiments that ignored them completely. There have been no biological experiments since, so they must believe they know as much as there is to know.
To return to the matter at hand: when class ended, Polaris dragged Victoria off. Seen from the main gate, it was the right-hand side of the school — the grounds that stretch long toward the east. This time as well, Polaris took Victoria into a park within the Royal Academy.
"This is the first time it's been just the two of us talking, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Pola. You planning to smash a tree this time too?"
At Victoria's joke, Polaris broke into a giggle.
We've only spoken once before. I truly didn't think she would actually call me by a nickname.
Thinking so, Polaris looked at the girl before her — boldness itself, given form.
Victoria Vett.
She was common-born through and through. Her family lived comfortably enough, but both their history and their fortune fell short of the standard, so by any ordinary measure it should have been impossible for her to enter the Royal Academy. Nor had her parents excelled at music or painting and won her a place through some special admission in those arts.
In other words, she had been admitted because she herself possessed an achievement. For Polaris, who prized talent, Victoria was, from that moment, someone she could regard with favor. And the achievement was a fine one. In a city struck by a disaster where magic could not be used, she had helped a great many people. Strength, certainly — and character as well. She passed.
Polaris already felt a great deal of goodwill toward Victoria.
Of course, she had not rated her too highly either. That alone was not merit enough to transfer someone into the Royal Academy and bring her all this way. The Academy's threshold was high, and its standards ferociously exacting. To Polaris's eye, Victoria only just clung to that line. Which meant there was another reason.
Then the reason must be the one always at her side.
Polaris called to mind the girl smaller than herself who was forever stuck to Victoria.
Bell.
Victoria's skin was white as porcelain too, but it held a luster and a faint ruddy warmth, so she looked like a beauty. This other girl had a pallor so white it was offensive. Not only her looks — her movements as well. There was something unpleasant in them, as if one were watching a thing that was not a person pretending to be one. Joined to skin that did not look human, it went beyond unpleasant. It was frightening.
So when word first came that transfer students would be arriving, the trouble Polaris had worried over — children who possessed nothing but rank, doing something vile out of jealousy — never came to pass. For those who had nothing but rank, the transfer student called Bell was too ill-omened to act against. And Victoria's circumstances, she suspected, were bound up in something grave concerning Bell. Reasoning so, Polaris spoke.
"I won't smash anything this time. If it's you, Tori, there's no need to talk in circles, so I'll ask straight. The woman called Meriwether Olket. You know something's strange about her, don't you?"
Polaris put the question to Victoria while reflecting that, had Victoria been a noble, they would have spent an age trudging through tiresome formalities before the conversation could even begin.
"Yeah. She popped up out of nowhere, but weirdly it felt like we'd been close from the start. Things I'd never normally say just came pouring out, strange as anything — like I was talking to Mom."
Afraid Victoria might come apart, Polaris chose her next words with care.
"Is that woman why things went bad between you and Bell, too?"
Unsure how far she ought to go, Victoria shut her mouth.
Is this person on Meriwether's side...? No. Pola would never. If she were on Meriwether's side, she wouldn't have reached out to us last time. And if I'm wrong, I'll just say my eyes were bad.
Saying it was rather a long story, Victoria then explained to Polaris everything that had happened over the weekend, from the first of it to the last. As she listened, displeasure and anger boiled up in Polaris at Meriwether's words, but she pressed them down and heard Victoria out, focused, from beginning to end.
"What a bitch."
Having heard the tale, Polaris reduced it to exactly one word.
"You're allowed to swear like that?"
"What, you think nobles don't curse? Heh. We only set language filthy enough to turn the stomach atop our etiquette and fling it with perfect breeding. Underneath, we're the same human garbage."
Polaris propped her chin on her hand and brooded, then lifted her head and looked at the sky.
I don't trust myself to put this into words and explain it. I know someone who could lay it out properly, but honestly, I don't even want to see their face... Even so, this is the sort of thing one ought to take to an expert. Before that, though, I should get it in order.
Polaris walked up in front of Victoria.
"Tori. What do you want to do?"
"What do you mean, what do I want to do?"
"Do you want to make up with Bell, or do you want to bring this Meriwether person up on charges?"
There was nothing in it but pure goodwill. Victoria felt as much in Polaris's words, and smiled a small smile.
"What? Why are you smiling?"
"Because Pola's a really good person. And I don't need to make up with Bell."
"No — listen. Going by your story, Meriwether's the one who made a mess of things between you."
When Victoria refused, flat and firm, Polaris decided she was sulking. Watching her mood, she opened her mouth, determined somehow to turn her around.
"Things between me and Bell never went bad."
"Huh? But for days you've sat apart and haven't said a word. There isn't a person who hasn't noticed the crack. Or is pride getting in the way?"
Victoria remembered the day her sense of something wrong had turned to suspicion — what had followed when Meriwether cut off the hand of a child who had tried to steal. At a glance it had looked openly hostile toward Victoria, but from start to finish it had been hostile toward Bell. So Victoria had asked Bell, where no one else could know, whether she knew. Bell had said that she did. And that she did not need help.
Then Victoria would trust that, when it was over, she would come back on her own.
"You know something? Bell is incredibly easy to read."
"That's only true for you."
"No, she really is. Once you get close, Pola, you'll be able to tell too. The way she acts like a mom is a little annoying, though."
At that truly unexpected turn of phrase, Polaris blinked.
Bell, like a mother? She looked like a doll in the shape of a child, unpleasant in how little will could be seen in her. Whenever she did anything, all Polaris ever saw was her being hauled along by Victoria, so day after day she felt nothing but the fact that Bell was not a person. Victoria's words were difficult to understand.
Seeing that look, Victoria put on a face that said she knew it all, and went on.
"Bell only looks like she isn't thinking. She isn't a fool. She doesn't need me right now, so she pushed me away. It's just..."
"Just?"
Victoria looked at Polaris and gave a bitter smile.
"It's only been three months since I met that kid, and I've barely gone a week without seeing her, and I'm already lonelier than I ought to be."
Inwardly, Polaris revised her estimation of Bell. There was no way someone this girl thought of so could be bad. But if she was a bad person — if she was deceiving even this girl — then Polaris amended the estimation to something like a demon possessed of wicked wisdom.
I don't want to stand by and watch a good child end up pitiful.
Polaris watched Victoria flush, protesting that she had said something far too embarrassing, and let out a short laugh.
"Then how about you hang around with me for a while? You don't have any friends, right?"
She had meant nothing by it. Victoria no longer had a friend to go about with, and being alone would be dull, so she was simply suggesting they keep company.
Kyaaaaah!
But it struck Victoria dead in the chest. She was already being teased by her mother and by Bell for having no friends, so it landed as a critical hit. Still, Victoria was a girl with a heart of steel. Honestly, like the protagonist of a horror game, she had begun by being dragged into an ominous place and finished by erasing the organization in question from the world — so rather than steel, some grim word like nuclear heat suited her better.
"Pola. I place myself in your care."
"Why are you talking like that? Did I say something weird? Tori? You really don't have friends, do you? No — why do you look like you're grinding your teeth!"
As the flustered Polaris scurried closer, Victoria waved her off, insisting she was fine.
Well, you're kicking me the way someone kicks a corpse to mock it.
She forced that grumble down and, feeling the blood of her heart spill all the while, made herself smile.
Today.
Victoria gained a new friend.