Coloring (5)
Coloring (5)
She wiped the apple against the sleeve of her clerical robe.
Two quick swipes.
Then she took a large, crunching bite.
The crisp sound split the silence in the room.
A sweet-tart scent bloomed outward, cutting through the stagnant air thick with cigarette smoke and the metallic tang of blood.
Estelle toyed with the cigarette she had stolen from between my fingers, waving it playfully. A faint flush colored her cheeks.
"So."
She spoke at last.
"How much do you know?"
I didn't answer right away. I was busy taking a drag from the cigarette Estelle had handed back to me. The bitterness coated my tongue. A familiar taste.
"How much do you think I know?" I countered, letting the smoke trickle out slowly. The gray haze hung between us like a veil.
Estelle watched me for a moment. A long, unblinking stare. Then she smiled.
"You know answering a question with a question is a bad habit?"
"You're doing it right now."
"I'm Her Holiness, so it's fine. God happens to be the type who only ever throws pointless questions around. Never once bothers with an answer."
The words spilled out as she crouched down beside the sofa. Her pristine white robes dragged across the filthy floor, soaking into the pool of my blood that had collected there. She didn't seem to notice, or care.
"Fine. How much you might know. You probably don't know this, though." Estelle rested her chin on her knees and stared up at me. In the dim room, her crimson eyes gleamed with unnatural clarity.
"The fact that Her Holiness doesn't really give a damn whether someone dies unjustly or not."
As she spoke, she scooped up a shard of broken glass from the floor. It was a decent size, jagged and wickedly sharp at one end. She rolled it once in her palm, then stabbed it down onto the table.
Crack.
The glass shard stayed intact. Only the table split, a fresh fracture running across its surface.
I had a feeling that if I pulled the trigger on the woman in front of me, the bullet would simply crumple.
"Or that I deliberately didn't stop someone from releasing a monster in the Forbidden Archive. Hm? The sort of stories that get you strung up and left to die the moment you whisper them to the wrong person."
I ground the nearly finished cigarette into the ashtray without ceremony and immediately fished out a fresh one to shove between my lips. I glanced at Estelle, who was still wearing her impish expression, and spoke in a low voice.
"Can't say about the rest, but I did hear about a few innocent priests branded as heretics and put to death."
The playful smile vanished from Estelle's face in an instant. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at me. "Forget it. Don't tell me. And they were far from innocent. By my standards, anyway."
Irritation sharpened her tone. She snatched another cigarette from my pack and stuck it between her lips. She glanced around as if looking for matches, then gave up and simply pressed the tip of her cigarette to the lit end of mine. The ember caught. Two tiny fires burned side by side.
Then, with a motion so fluid it felt practiced, she settled herself onto my lap.
Estelle draped an arm around my shoulder and blew a stream of smoke directly into my face. A soft, deliberate puff.
"Doesn't matter if I say it. But I hate hearing other people talk about it. Don't know why, and it's worse with you. Maybe I only want to hear pretty things from your mouth."
The acrid smoke blurred my vision. Her breath carried a faint, fruity scent mingled with the tobacco. Her fingers ghosted across my face. Slowly. They traced the line of my eyebrow. Her fingertips were lukewarm, a temperature that felt oddly starved of life. The fingers slid down the bridge of my nose and tickled the tip with a strange gentleness. The gesture was playful, but her eyes weren't smiling.
"Hmm."
She made a humming sound of amusement as she touched my lips, pressing the lower one lightly and tracing its contour with a slow, deliberate drag.
"Anyway. People."
Estelle whispered it. Her breath brushed my cheek.
"When they're in front of me. Even the hoity-toity nobles, they all grovel and tremble, terrified one wrong word will send them straight to hell."
Her finger traveled along my jawline, up to my ear. She gently pinched the lobe before letting it go with the same soft slowness.
A ticklish feeling crept over me, and I turned my head, but her hand didn't fall away. My face seemed to be a point of genuine fascination for her.
"Why aren't you?"
A ghost of a smile returned to her lips.
"I've spent a long time dealing with someone far worse."
"Levina?"
She shrugged, then began to giggle to herself, a suppressed, hiccuping sound, her body shaking slightly on my lap. She cupped my cheeks with both hands, pulling her face close to mine until our noses were nearly touching.
"Right. Heh. Levina would definitely fit the bill."
Estelle's fingers slowly threaded into my hair. A soft sensation. She mussed it up, then smoothed it back down just as gently.
"If I had a little brother like you, I would've treated you so well."
She took the cigarette from my hand and tossed it carelessly to the floor behind her, murmuring, "Come to the church near the back gate tomorrow. They've got way better stuff than this cheap crap. Didn't even realize it myself, but the church is overflowing with it."
"Got any booze?"
"Overflowing. Mostly just wine, though."
"And it's fine if I take some?"
"Yeah. Who's gonna stop me if I say I'm taking it?"
That was the idle chatter we were making when the door swung open.
Screech.
A sharp, piercing noise.
Levina stepped inside. Her face was set even harder than usual. She seemed to have come to check whether I was still in one piece. Her gaze, however, fixed on me seated on the sofa—and on Estelle, perched on my lap, puffing on a cigarette. Her attention snagged specifically on the grime staining Estelle's robes and the shameless way she held the cigarette in her mouth.
A deep frown carved itself between Levina's brows.
"I believe I asked you only to provide treatment." Levina's voice was frozen over, the strain of suppressed irritation cracking through. "Or was this your doing, Ravin? What sort of leverage could you possibly have been trying to get? No matter how stupid you are, there are lines you don't cross. The Saintess..."
Levina was massaging her temple as if warding off a headache when Estelle cut her off mid-sentence.
"I approached him first, actually?"
She was staring daggers at Levina from my lap.
"What? You said you were kicking him out soon anyway." Estelle replied as if there were no issue at all, slow smoke trailing from her lips.
She stubbed her cigarette out on the tabletop. An indifferent, dry gesture.
"It's a family matter. Not something you need to open your mouth about."
Levina's jaw tightened. She took one step, then another, moving toward us with measured deliberation. Estelle didn't flinch. She simply stared up at her, looking more entertained than anything else. Honestly, a part of me just wished they'd both take their theatrics outside instead of trashing my room.
"A family matter, huh. Then why dump him on me? Wouldn't it be nice if all the family members lovingly nursed him back to health together? Couldn't even wrap a bandage yourself?"
Estelle punctuated the statement with a light slap to my arm.
"Because you were the only one with the skill to treat him immediately."
Levina's answer was concise.
"What, you think just because you, me, and Kyle killed some pathetic vermin together, we're on the same level or something?"
Estelle snickered. The sound of it seemed to scrape across Levina's last nerve.
"You're noisy. Get out. I still have things to discuss with Ravin."
Levina spoke. An envelope was clutched in her right hand.
Was this the formal announcement of my expulsion from the family? A story I had no need to sit and listen to.
"No thanks? The treatment is done, but I haven't been paid yet. Hand this guy over to me. I'll raise him well. You're kicking him out anyway, aren't you?"
Levina stared at Estelle with sheer exhaustion in her eyes. The exact same gaze she used to reserve for me.
"Estelle, don't cross the line. He's still my younger brother, for now."
"Right. But you're still kicking him out."
Estelle made a deliberate show of not climbing off me, instead grabbing my wrist and lifting my arm. She traced the spot where the wound had been with her finger, a sneer in her voice.
"And also, generally speaking. Isn't a sister who lets her younger brother get to this state not much of a sister at all?"
"That is none of your concern..."
Levina started, then stopped. A thought seemed to strike her. On her otherwise expressionless face, the corner of her mouth quirked upward.
"Ah. That's right. Didn't Her Holiness once mention she had a little brother? A long time ago?"
Estelle rose from her seat. My lap. Very, very slowly.
She picked up an empty bottle rolling around on the floor.
CRASH!
She made a feint as if to hurl it at Levina, then at the last second flung it against the wall. The glass exploded into shards. The sharp, violent sound rang through the room. Fragments scattered everywhere.
A small cut opened on Levina's cheek. A single bead of crimson welled up, stark against her pale skin as it trickled down. But she didn't so much as blink.
The two of them simply stared at each other.
"See you tomorrow."
After a long silence, Estelle spoke. Her voice was eerily calm.
As if nothing had happened, she reached out and stroked Levina's cheek once. In the same instant, the cut sealed itself and vanished without a trace.
She straightened her disheveled robes, aimed a wink at me, and then strolled out of the room as naturally as if she owned the place.
The door clicked shut, leaving only me and Levina in the silence. The moment Estelle was gone, Levina let out a bone-weary sigh and slumped into the very chair Estelle had occupied moments before, muttering under her breath.
"She's insane, that woman. Don't even think about getting close to her."
Paperwork was still clutched in her right hand. The official notice of my banishment.