Chapter 185
A few days later, in the afternoon after classes had let out, I was still waiting to see who would answer first — the royal family, or Kanna. The first reply, unexpectedly, came from neither of them.
Victoria received the letter that had come for her. It was not an answer from her parents. It had come back as a return.
She sat with it for about five minutes, then left the dormitory at once and headed for the school building. Into the administration office she went. A leave of absence? Something had come up at home, she needed to go down for a few weeks, so would they hand over whatever had to be filled out? Wasn't that an awfully quick decision?
The clerk, flustered, asked what was going on. Victoria answered that she had sent a letter, it had been sent back, and she was going to see for herself. A letter like that had no business returning.
The clerk tried hard to persuade her to wait a little. Victoria did not sway. She had a bad feeling, she said, and since she was following procedure, they should simply do as she asked. Both the clerk and I — hearing it through Victoria's eyes — understood the rest. If they would not do it now, she would leave anyway.
In the end the clerk handed over the necessary papers. Victoria filled them out without a tremor and left the office. Beyond the edge of her gaze I saw the clerk reaching out to someone, though I couldn't tell where.
She went straight back to the dormitory, packed a light bag, spread a sheet of paper, left a short note for me, and walked out of the room.
I was seeing all of it through Victoria's eyes, so there was no need to go and look. By rights, though, this was something I was not supposed to know.
Victoria passed out the main gate at last and took a roundabout road she knew — a port southwest of the capital, and from there a ship straight on to Berne City. The port where she had been kidnapped, last time.
If a place is dangerous, oughtn't one to stay away? No. Victoria had caught every last fishman who took her. There was no reason to worry, and no need for her to fear strangers besides. Anyone even halfway ordinary would be buried under water and lose consciousness before they managed a proper fight. Water is heavier than people think, and stronger, and Victoria, who can move it as she pleases, is genuinely powerful.
Even granting that Maleficent had been going easy on her, she had at least been able to stand her ground. Put it in the terms of a game, and she had already cleared the recommended level for facing a raid boss. She was short on numbers and short on fighting strength, of course, and so she was crushed all the same. Where her safety was concerned, at least, there was nothing to fear.
Strength and courage belong to entirely different genres, though.
Victoria was gone. And I had no way of knowing it — not right now. There was nothing for it. I would simply have to hear the news from someone else tomorrow. Hiding the fact that I watch the world through the Harvesters mattered more than Victoria's safety. Priorities, in a word.
So on this day, Bell stayed quietly in her lodgings. The body called Bell can move only when it has a reason.
The next day.
Class began, and Victoria did not come. Of course she didn't. At that very moment she was at the port, waiting for a ship.
The teacher marked a simple absence and moved on. That it was entered as nothing more than an absence suggested the word from the administration office had not arrived yet. Then again, today's first class was not with the homeroom teacher.
The moment class ended, Polaris came up to me.
"Bell. Did something happen to Victoria?"
"I was just about to go to her room."
I said it and started off, then glanced back at her. The worry on her face was nothing but genuine. Hmm.
"Want to come with me?"
"Uh — no. But."
"It isn't strange for a classmate to go."
With that, I used the lunch hour to head for Victoria's dormitory. For all her stammering, the instant I said she might come, Polaris followed without hesitation. Quick to decide, Victoria. Quick to decide, Polaris.
I went to gather information while pretending not to know what I already knew. I had considered simply saying I could hear Victoria's voice and going that way, but then the past would become a problem. It would be strange, wouldn't it, not to have known that the royal family dismantled a Harvester and experimented on it? That would mean I had known. To have cooperated with the kingdom without a single objection, while knowing everything, would be a problem. I had spent all this time acting so thoroughly like a good person, and they would realize I had already known about those cruel experiments. Anyone who was not a fool would start pressing me on my true nature.
So I never claim to know a particular person's voice. Not clearly — only faintly. That is the proper degree. The line along which I can still talk my way clear is one I have to keep.
So I went into the dormitory with Polaris. I knew the room was empty. I knocked all the same, and then I opened the door.
The room was bare.
So that Polaris could see, I walked to the desk and picked up the note Victoria had left.
Something's come up at home. I'll go, and I'll be back.
"Looks like something happened at home."
I pressed it into Polaris's hand. She took the paper from me and read.
"What? Don't tell me she just left without a word to the school?"
She had followed the proper procedure. It simply didn't seem to have been passed along yet. Leaving Polaris standing there with the note, I opened a drawer and lifted out the returned letter.
"You know something?"
Still holding the note, Polaris walked up to me.
"A letter came from her family. Stiff — nothing they would ever actually write. So she sent one back."
I handed her the letter.
"Returned?"
"Victoria has gone to her parents. They live in Berne City."
I was careful not to say anything that guessed at Victoria's condition, or at her heart. I had learned, only a little while ago, that there can be a gap between perspectives. Instead, I said this.
"Want to go after her?"
"Let's go."
Polaris did not hesitate.
Yes. A bold streak in her. She might not be so different from Kanna as she is now.
Class? For me, that is only a game for passing the time. If something more important is waiting, I go and find it.
"Do you know the way?"
"Berne City — I remember going a few times with my father. And if we go by way of the Bearingtons, we ought to catch up right away, so don't worry."
I set aside the question of how we were meant to close a physical distance, and nodded. If someone is good at a thing, you follow. I fell in behind Polaris as she set off at once.
Meanwhile, Victoria had only just boarded. Before long, in a voice cold enough to freeze the air, she asked a crewman why the ship was not bound for Berne City.
What his stammering revealed was a truth that struck her hard. For weeks already, the sea route to Berne City had been forbidden. Great protests there had broken into unrest, and even now the demonstrators held the city. Not the newest word — a little old. Every lane headed there had been sealed, he told her. One could still cross to the far shore, so if she had business, she ought to go that way.
Victoria steadied herself on his words. She looked down at her hands, which were shaking hard, and closed them into fists. Then she bowed her head and said she was sorry.
The crewman asked, carefully, what was wrong. Her parents lived there, she said, and no word had come back. He soothed her — it would be all right — and the people nearby each put in a word. Face set hard, Victoria forced out that she was fine, and went to her seat.
She must have bought the passage in a rush. It was not a cabin, as last time, but a seat on the ship itself. She had barely sat down when some frivolous-looking man came over and, all kindness, asked what the matter was.
Victoria, impressively, packed every feeling away. She let her expression loosen just a little and answered that something urgent had come up at home, that she was hurrying back, and that he needn't worry. She had to be terribly anxious, and yet her hands were no longer shaking. What she had become, instead, was a state I remembered — the time she had been made complete as the Fishman Butcher. Resolved, in other words. Look at this side of her, and she is no ordinary child. Victoria.
The man read that look and quietly slipped away. Ah. There had been lust in him, and what a waste. Quick to read a room.
Just then, before the main gate of the Royal Academy, Polaris turned to me.
"We're going to run a little. Confident you can?"
"A light run, maybe."
"Then run."
So I ran as I had when I went to Maleficent's house and back, and Polaris let out a small sigh. I had thought I was moving fairly fast. She came over and hoisted me up. Fortunately we were close enough in height that my legs didn't drag — but there was no mistaking it. She meant to run with me in her arms.
"Excuse me. What — why are you this light? Are you eating properly?"
"If you're going to carry me and run, wait a moment."
The lodgings were right there in front of us. I gave a small squirm until my feet found the ground, then knocked at the door. A maid came out before long, and I asked her to fetch the butler.
"You sent for me?"
"Yes. I might not be back today."
"I see. If you are bound somewhere in haste, shall I have a conveyance brought?"
Hmm?
I called Polaris over at once.
"What?"
She came, and I caught her by the hand.
"I'm going to Berne City with her. Give us the fastest one you have."
"I'll have it ready at once. Please wait inside."
Strange, truly — he never asked what I intended. He simply did as I asked. I took Polaris into the lodgings. He might report the whole of it to the royal family just like this, and that was still fine. Right now, in this situation, I was not acting on information I was never meant to have.
Polaris followed me in with a blank look. We made for the parlor on the first floor, where people gather, and the butler indicated a room farther in, so we entered. By Kanna's knowledge, it was dressed in furnishings three-tenths more precious than the room I live in.
The moment the butler stepped out and the two of us were alone, Polaris asked, urgent.
"You just got into the Royal Academy on some special ability, didn't you? That was all?"
"That ability must have been worth about this much."
She stared at me with a face that believed none of it. True to the way she looked, Polaris drew in on herself like a little child. After that last line, she did not open her mouth again. Nervous, most likely.
A few minutes later, Polaris and I boarded the carriage.