The Sun Rising in the West
"Yes. She's with us."
Blow was at the communications office inside Splas City Hall, speaking with the baron through a communications spell. Beside him, Melo knelt with her hands raised, sniffling, while Jane and Hans took turns scolding her.
"Do you have any idea how worried your mother was?"
"I-I'm sorry..."
"Let's hear your reason. Why did you do it?"
"I just wanted to see Caipol once... hic..."
Still on the line with the baron, Blow pressed a hand to his throbbing temple and looked at her, a mess of tears and snot.
I never thought it would come to this.
The sight pulled him back to the afternoon they had spent roasting potatoes together, and to the talk of Caipol that had started it all.
"How big is Caipol?"
"About ten times the size of Blanya."
"That big?!"
"And there are people beyond counting. Every sort you can imagine. Now and then you even see other races — elves, orcs."
"E-elves!"
Melo thought of the picture in the only storybook at home, a beautiful people with long ears who shot the bow like no one else, and her mouth fell open.
"What kind of food do they have in Caipol?"
"Everything under the sun. Lobster dishes, for one."
"Lobster?"
"Do you know what a lobster is?"
"I saw one last year, at Lord Elsid's birthday."
Her eyes sparkled so sweetly that Blow found himself stroking her head before he realized it.
"You've got a good memory."
"It was sooo good. What else? What else is there?"
"Giant clams. Honeycomb pasta. Dishes made with squid ink."
"Whoa..."
Every time he named another dish, Melo's eyes lit up, and from then on the questions came in a barrage.
"D-do they have oysters too?"
"Haven't you had oysters here a few times?"
"I mean the big, plump ones."
"Yes. They have those."
"W-wait a second."
Cheeks flushed, Melo hauled a thick book out of the cupboard below, grunting with the effort. The title read A Dictionary of Ingredients for Fine Cuisine. She opened it to the front and began pointing at the entries one by one.
"This one?"
"They have it."
"This one?"
"We eat that all the time."
"Th-this one too?"
Blow smiled, and with the pen he had been using he drew a circle around the entire page.
"Everything on here."
"Haa..."
Seeing her swell with excitement, he smoothed her hair and went on.
"Next time, I'll invite you. I promise."
"Okay."
"And later, if my business takes off, I can send you to a cooking school in Caipol."
"Okay..."
"Hello?"
Romang's voice — Melo's mother — rang from the communications circle. The moment Melo heard it, tears welled and spilled.
"Mom..."
"Melo, you wretched girl! Do you have any idea how long everyone searched for you?"
Melo could only hiccup, unable to get a word out. Blow dragged a dry hand down his face and answered Romang in her place.
"I've looked her over. She seems all right. She says she ate well enough on bread she snuck along."
"She must have hidden herself very well. I raised her badly. I'm sorry, young master."
Romang Greenhill had already known that Melo slipped over to the mansion at night. Go into the kitchen in the morning and a little of the ingredients would be gone, and the tools were never quite where she had left them. She had let it pass because the mansion sat practically against their house, and because Alfred the butler knew of it as well.
"I'll send Melo back once we reach Caipol."
"I would be grateful. I'm truly sorry, young master."
"It's all right. Don't worry yourself. Rest easy."
"Yes. Please look after her."
When she finished, Blow nodded to the mage before him, and the circle blazing in the air vanished at once.
"That will be two silver."
Hans thrust the money at her in a hurry. Blow turned a cold eye on him.
"Hans."
"Yes, master!"
"I told you to check properly, didn't I?"
"I-I did. When we loaded the luggage, she wasn't there. I checked again on the road, and she still wasn't."
Hans sounded on the verge of tears. Blow's sharp gaze shifted to Melo, and in a voice that shrank smaller and smaller she confessed everything.
"After the luggage was all loaded. Before the carriage left, I crawled in under the canvas."
The others gaped. Blow folded his arms and looked down at her, at a loss.
"Are you really twelve?"
"I'm sorry."
"Then what about when we checked yesterday, and the day before?"
"Whenever the carriage stopped and the door opened, I slipped out and hid."
A chill went through him, and his voice hardened.
"If you'd slipped even once, you'd have been left out in the fields. Do you understand that?"
"Yes..."
"And we might never have found you!"
"I'm sorry. Hic..."
Blow pressed a hand to his chest, profoundly grateful that it had not happened as he'd said.
"And if you do it again?"
"I-I won't."
"If anything like this happens again, you will never be allowed near the kitchen."
"What?"
At the kitchen ban, Melo's face collapsed as if the world had ended. Blow went on, unyielding.
"I mean it. I'll tell every servant in the house."
"I r-really won't, young master..."
She had already cried so hard, and still her eyes brimmed. Seeing that, Blow's resolve softened at once, and a deep sigh escaped him.
"Enough. Put your hands down."
"Hic..."
"Don't ever do it again. And the moment we reach Caipol, you get off and go straight home."
"......"
"Answer me."
"Yes..."
The reply was barely a whisper. Blow turned to Hans, who stood beside them with no idea what to do with himself.
"Hans."
"Y-yes!"
Blow stared at him in silence. His expression looked ready to explode, and Hans bent at the waist and blurted it out.
"I-I will make absolutely certain nothing like this ever happens again."
"And if it does?"
"Take my head."
That was enough. Blow turned to Olivia, who had been watching the whole scene with keen interest.
"We ought to get some dinner."
"Of course! I'll show you the way."
"You saved us. Thank you."
"I hardly did anything. All I did was put you through to the communications office."
"Why don't you join us? My treat."
"It would be an honor. I know a place that roasts chicken like nothing else. I'll take you there."
Melo, still on her knees, and Hans, still bent double, stole glances at him. A few steps on, Blow looked back and said, flatly:
"What are you doing? I said let's go."
Melo and Hans scrambled up and hurried after him. Jane, who had been watching from a step ahead, met Olivia's eyes — and smiled before she quite meant to.
Caipol Municipal Magic School. Herbena's private laboratory.
From the moment she heard the news of Blow, her research would not stay in her hands. She sat perched on the edge of her chair, staring blankly into empty air. Before her eyes floated the crests she had shaped from mana: House Mertios, House Edfolk, House Ropert, and House Campbell. The four great houses of Serdia — and the houses that had offered to take her as their own.
"That damned scoundrel! He is not one bit of help!"
She raked a hand through her violet hair until it was a wreck, and as she did she thought back to the call she had shared a few days ago with her friend Megan, back at the mansion.
"The young master? He left some time ago."
"What? Where? Don't tell me — no."
"It is exactly what you're thinking. He said he was going to Caipol."
At that, Herbena let out a long sigh.
"Haa... He's coming here?"
"Not to reenroll, from what I can tell. He seems to be going into business. He bought up a huge load of potatoes and took them with him."
"He wakes up and that's the first stunt he pulls?"
"The young master has become a little unusual."
"Unusual how? Did he at least quit drinking?"
"His temperament — how should I put it? He seems much gentler. Which is good for us, of course."
Herbena could not hold back a snort.
"Ha! A warm-hearted man like that, coming up here to do business? After he watched the house get torn apart?"
"No, really. These days he even greets us in the morning. And he doesn't turn his nose up at his meals."
"I'd sooner believe the sun rose in the west."
"It's true..."
"People don't change. He lay there so long he forgot who he was. That character of his isn't going anywhere."
Certainty sat in her voice. She remembered what had passed between her and Blow better than anyone. Megan spoke as if something had just occurred to her.
"True enough. He does fight with the lady every day."
"With the lady?"
"Yes. The moment he woke, he traded Drenor for Jane, of all things. The mood in the mansion then was really..."
"...And what the hell is that supposed to be?"
Megan gave her a brief account of how Blow had exchanged Drenor for Jane. It was a story she could hear and still not believe, and Herbena's head tilted as she listened over the line.
"...Truly?"
"Truly. Would I lie about something like this?"
Herbena had already known Jane was with the guild in Splas. She had not gone looking for it; Julbert had stopped in Splas and said he had seen her. Things with Jane had grown awkward somewhere along the way, and it had been a long time since they had spoken, but when she heard Jane had been sold, it had unsettled her. She had meant to bring her back once she herself became a proper mage...
"...That scoundrel traded Drenor for Jane?"
"That's what I'm telling you. He even disposed of everything in his room."
"I can't believe it."
"Anyway, we're all still reeling over here, so you have to tell me whatever happens in Caipol. All right?"
"Fine. If I actually lay eyes on that face of his."
"Won't you be seeing him soon?"
"Don't say irritating things. I'm hanging up."
"Angry over nothing? See you later."
Having turned the call over in her mind once more, Herbena scowled and rubbed her chin.
Greeting the servants? That scoundrel?
Not smashing bowls was astonishing enough — and now he doesn't even refuse his meals? That scoundrel?
He traded Drenor for Jane? That scoundrel?
She prided herself on knowing the man he had been, right up until he collapsed, better than anyone but Jane. Until she saw him with her own two eyes, she had no intention of believing a word of it.
Knock, knock.
A rap came at the laboratory door. Herbena stopped thinking, flicked her hand, and the door opened. The dormitory matron stood there, smiling.
"Lady Herbena, you have a visitor."
"A visitor? Who?"
"Young Master Blow and his party have come to see you."
Herbena smoothed her tangled violet hair and shot to her feet.
Fine. Better to take the beating quickly.
She threw on an outer robe and stepped out, and for some reason the matron was grinning like a fool.
"Is it really Blow Deblique?"
"Yes. Quite certain. He's lost a great deal of weight."
"Haa. What is he planning this time?"
"It didn't seem ordinary."
"What on earth...?"
"You'll know when you see for yourself."
So she went down to the first floor, and at the scene spread before her, Herbena's brow drew tight.
Blow, waving in welcome in a way that did not suit him at all. Jane, bowing toward her with an awkward stiffness. Melo, looking around in every direction as if the whole world were a wonder. And behind them, sacks of potatoes piling higher.
"This is a goddamn mess."
The words left her the moment she saw them. She had no other choice.