Delusion (3)
Delusion (3)
I pushed open the church doors and stepped outside.
Behind me, I left Estelle with some vague, almost insubstantial promise that I would visit from time to time.
She had remained seated, watching me go with an expression I couldn't read.
I walked slowly along the path back to the dormitory.
My ruined uniform snagged against me with every step.
My whole body might have been throbbing, or it might have been nothing at all.
The path back to my room had grown dark without my noticing.
I gripped the familiar door handle and turned it.
A soft creak, and the door swung open. I stepped inside.
And stopped where I stood.
Levina was sitting on the sofa in my room.
She sat with her legs crossed, staring out the window as calmly as if the place belonged to her.
She had no reason to be here at this hour.
At least, not in any version of events I remembered.
Nothing rested on the table. Her hands were empty. No sign of the letter she had always come to thrust at me in other cycles — the one informing me the family had expelled me.
"Why show up all of a sudden this late?"
My voice came out a little hoarse, though I hadn't meant it to.
She turned her head slowly and looked at me.
Her gaze traveled from my hair to the tips of my shoes, tracking slowly over the wreck of my uniform.
She didn't comment on it.
"Can't an older sister visit her younger brother's room?"
"Debatable."
I pushed the door shut and moved further inside.
The sound of the door closing rang louder than it should have.
"This from the person who told me not to come crawling back to the estate."
"This isn't the estate," Levina answered with a shrug.
She rose from the sofa without any particular intent and wandered over toward the liquor bottles I'd stacked in the corner.
She picked one up and tilted it lightly.
"And back then, I had my own pressures piling up."
While she spoke, she retrieved two glasses from the cupboard.
One she set before herself. The other she placed on the table on my side of the room.
She uncapped the bottle and poured. The quiet sound of amber liquid filling a glass rippled through the silence.
"Did you hear about the broken engagement? From Serepina?"
She took a sip and asked it like she was discussing the weather.
I sat down on the sofa opposite her. I didn't answer the question.
"So you haven't heard."
Levina clicked her tongue.
"That girl gets pushed around so much she can't manage anything properly. I'm sure she couldn't even get the words out in front of you."
She stood again and began pacing slowly around the room.
Her heels tapped softly against the floor.
"Don't bring up Serepina."
"Why? It's going to be over between you two soon anyway."
"She's never helped. If anything, she's only been an obstacle."
At my words, her steps halted for a fraction of a second.
She turned back to look at me.
"No. She's the sort of girl who does you no good by being near you."
That was new. Levina had never run Serepina down in front of Ravin before — not like this. At most, she'd hinted that Serepina was too good for him.
"So why do you think that?"
"Just a feeling."
"That's the first time I've ever heard that kind of nonsense come out of your mouth."
"...Nonsense."
Levina cleared her throat with a quiet cough.
"Anyway, isn't this for the best? There's no advantage to being tangled up with a girl like that. She's terrified of me — never once defended you when I was around. She's not exactly wife material."
"If we start weighing people like that one by one, who in the world is a match for someone like me?"
Levina's lips moved soundlessly as she stared at me. She said nothing.
She turned away again and came to a stop before the landscape painting on the wall.
The one Serepina had given me as a gift.
She stood there in silence for a long while, just looking at it.
"You cleaned up well. Last time I was here, it was practically a pigsty."
Her voice was hard to pin down.
She returned to the table and refilled her own glass, then topped off the empty one in front of me.
"Drink."
I hesitated, then lifted the glass.
Poison wasn't Levina's style — not like this.
I emptied it. The alcohol slid down my throat with the old, familiar burn.
Levina knocked back two glasses in quick succession.
Then she set her glass on the table and spoke in a low voice.
"Ah, right. That's why I came. I'm going to expel you from the family."
I gave no answer.
All I did was look down at my empty glass.
The only thought in my head was that the inevitable had finally arrived.
"What, are you in shock? You don't need to worry too much."
A faint hesitation seeped into her voice.
I let out a hollow laugh.
"No. I've been waiting to get kicked out."
My flat reaction made her expression go blank for a moment.
She blinked.
"...Of course, that's just what I'm saying officially."
She continued after a pause.
"Just don't go throwing the Edelgard name around outside the castle walls. The life you've been living won't change much."
"Then why bother expelling me?"
"Because your reputation isn't just horrific — it's ground into the dirt. The Forbidden Archive. You remember? A lower-ranking noble student died."
"You know as well as I do that I didn't do it."
"Of course. I know that very well."
Levina's tone turned oddly soothing, almost pitying.
"That's exactly why I'm expelling you. The idiots who fill this world think cutting you off from the family is more brutal than cutting off your head."
As she spoke, her right eye trembled, fluttering, and a single tear slipped down her cheek.
I didn't point it out.
She wiped it away with the back of her hand and continued as if nothing had happened.
"But you're still my younger brother. You're still an Edelgard. It's only official — you and I, we'll become nothing to each other. Like an ordinary noble heir and her illegitimate half-sibling."
Her voice had recovered its usual composure.
But there was still something fine and tremulous running underneath it.
"That's not so bad, is it? After you graduate and I become family head, once I've pushed Mother back enough to manage her — she throws a fit every time she sees you — I'll arrange a proper space for you in the main house. You can live there and help me with my work."
She added the last part a touch self-consciously, gauging my reaction.
"If possible, I'd like you to withdraw from the Academy and stay in the family annex. I'll come by often."
"Since when?"
"Since when what?"
She didn't follow.
"Since when have you been thinking this? The annex. Bringing me to the main house."
Levina considered it.
Her gaze drifted toward a point in empty air.
"I don't know. Maybe since you were around ten, back when Mother first tried to kill you. Does it matter now?"
I met her eyes at that. I opened my mouth to say something, then shut it again.
"Just don't go around invoking Edelgard outside. I'll provide whatever you need, whatever support you want. That'll be far better for you too. You won't have to walk on eggshells around anyone."
"Better for me?"
My voice came out colder than I'd expected.
Levina's shoulders twitched.
"Yes. It's the best option. The best I can think of."
"I'm sure it is."
I ran my fingers over the empty glass. The chill of it was sharp against my fingertips.
It was true that my time in the annex had been comfortable. I'd felt, to some degree, like I'd escaped the things that had been tightening around me from every side.
Except that whenever I sat idle — staring at nothing, doing nothing — the image of Rineta hanging dead before my eyes flickered through my mind.
Even when I shut my eyes to sleep. Even when I closed them for a moment.
The sour, rancid smell that had seeped from the body suspended from the ceiling.
The faint, lingering, sickening trace of warmth that had somehow remained.
The sound her corpse had made — a dull, heavy thud — when I finally couldn't untie the rope one-handed, grabbed it with both hands, and the knot gave way, dropping her to the floor.
I swallowed the thoughts down and made myself face Levina as evenly as I could.
It was harder than I wanted it to be.
"I believe you. That you'd do that for me — you're my sister."
I set the glass on the table.
I picked up the bottle and poured slowly into my own glass.
I didn't drink.
"But you can't do it right now."
Levina opened her mouth to reply, then closed it.
How many times was I going to watch her eyes waver like that? It was starting to feel tedious.
I rose from my seat and approached her slowly.
I picked up the glass in front of her, the one still half-full.
She looked up at me without a word.
I drank down what remained of her liquor without leaving a drop.
Then I set the empty glass on the table, lifted the bottle, and filled it again.
A faint trace of lip-print clung to the rim — from the warmth of her skin, maybe.
"After I graduate, I'll do everything you said. So for a while, turn a blind eye to whatever I do."
Levina stared blankly at the glass I'd refilled for her.
Then her gaze rose to meet mine.
She lifted the glass slowly, deliberately, and pressed her lips exactly where mine had touched it. She drank.
"...As long as it's not too big a disaster."
She set the glass down.
"So. What are you planning?"
"I don't know. But even so, I have to do something."
She didn't ask further.
Silence settled over the room again.
We sat without speaking for a long while.
On the table lay only the bottle and two glasses.
Levina picked up a few cigarette butts from the ashtray, set them back down, and spoke.
"You've cut back on smoking quite a bit, I see."
"Seems so."
"Next time I visit, I'll bring you something. Is there anything you want?"
I shook my head. With those words left hanging, she looked at me a moment longer, then rose and walked out of the room.
I didn't bother to get up and see her off.
No angle made this look normal.